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©LD  Testament 
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ByA.J.E  Behrends,  D,D. 


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OCT  26  1897  "^ 


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Division. Jlj^  I  i  (oO 


The  Old  Testament 
Under.  Fire 


BY 

A.J,  F.  BEHRENDS,  DD.,  S.T.D. 

PASTOR    OF    THE    CENTRAL    CONGREGATIONAL    CHURCH 
BROOKLYN,  N.  Y. 


NKW    YORK 

FUNK  &  WAGNAIvLS  COMPANY 

LONDON    AND   TORONTO 
1897 


Copyrigted,  1S97,  by 

FUNK   &    WAGNAI,I,S    COMPANY 

[printed  in  the  united  states  of  America] 


Tie  die  at  ed  to   the   Members  of  the 

Central  Congregational  Church 
and   Society, 

whose  cordial  support  and  earnest 
love  for  the  Scriptures  have  been 
a  constant  source  of  courage  and 
inspiration,  tJirougJi  a  ministry  of 
more  than  fourteen  years,  by  the 
author,  who  considers  it  his  high- 
est honor  to  be  their  Pastor 


PREFACE. 

Thk  contents  of  this  little  book  were  struck  off 
at  white  heat.  They  were  prepared  to  meet  a 
pressing  emergenc}^  without  an}^  thought  of  pub- 
lication. The  author  has  yielded  to  the  pressure 
of  many  friends,  to  give  them  more  permanent 
lorni.  He  is  fully  aware  that  this  volume  can 
answer  only  a  passing  demand.  He  is  not  so 
blind  as  to  suppose  that  it  will  take  rank  with  the 
discussions  of  scholars.  The  several  papers  were 
prepared  for  audiences  composed  of  intelligent 
and  thoughtful  men  and  women,  who  were  fully 
competent  to  follow  a  close  and  searching  argu- 
ment, so  long  as  the  discussion  was  not  swamped 
by  technical  details.  To  such  readers,  clerical 
and  lay,  they  are  submitted.  Only  the  salient 
points  are  considered.  And  the  free  conversa- 
tional style  has  been  retained,  as  best  suited  to  the 
purpose,  which  the  author  had  in  view. 


VI  PREFACE. 

The  first  chapter  appeared,  three  years  ago,  in 
three  articles,  in  the  "  Christian  Advocate,'"  of 
New  York,  and  is  reprinted  with  the  consent  of 
its  editor.     The  remaining  chapters  are  recent. 

\.  J.   F.  Brhrends, 
g6  Bi'ooklyn  Ave., 

Brooklyn,  N.  K 


TABT.K    OF   CONTKNTvS 


CHAPTER    I 

PAGE 

General  Survey 9-46 

CHAPTER   H 
Our  Lord's  Use  of  the  Old  Testament      47-62 

CHAPTER   HI 
Christ  and  the  Old  Testament  ....      63-95 

CHAPTER    IV 
Criticism  AND  THE  Old  Testament  .    .     .    96-147 

CHAPTER  V 
Criticism  and  Common  Sense 148-191 

CHAPTER   VI 
The  Historic  Faith       , 192-211 

CHAPTER   VII 
The  Integrity  of  the  New  Testament    212-240 

Note    .    .    , 241-246 


The  Old  Testament  Under  Fire 


CHAPTER   I. 

General  Survey. 

"Hold  fast  that  which  thou  hast." 

Rev.  iii :  ii. 

I  BKG  to  say,  at  the  outset,  that  I  do  not  pose 
as  a  specialist.  I  have  only  a  running  acquaint- 
ance with-  the  language  in  which  the  ancient 
Scriptures  were  written,  sufficient  for  the  purpose 
of  forming  an  independent  judgment,  but  not 
warranting  acceptance  on  my  part  of  the  challenge 
of  debate.  I  am  even  less  concerned  to  appear  as 
a  defender  of  the  Bible.  The  ark  of  God  is  not 
in  danger.  Moses  and  the  prophets  are  too  deeply 
imbedded  in  the  life  of  modern  history,  ever  to  be 
eliminated  from  it  by  the  analytics  of  criticism. 
The  discovery  of  new  truth  can  result  only  in 


lO  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    EIRE. 

good;  and  he  who  deprecates  or  denounces  criti- 
cism has  already  surrendered  his  faith,  and  has 
labeled  himself  the  disciple  of  a  blind  tradition- 
alism. 

It  is  not  an  argument,  therefore,  which  I  pro- 
pose to  conducft.  I  am  going  to  rise  in  my  place 
and  tell  my  experience,  the  resultant  convicftion 
to  which  several  years  of  patient  and  painstaking 
study  have  led  me.  My  readers  mu.st  excuse, 
therefore,  the  frequent  use  of  the  personal  pro- 
noun, which  in  the  present  case  is  really  an  evi- 
dence of  modesty.  There  came  a  time  when  I 
could  no  longer  take  my  opinions  at  second  hand 
from  the  critical  specialists.  Their  differences 
among  themselves  were  so  many  and  so  serious, 
that  the  only  escape  from  either  agnosticism,  or  a 
slavish  following,  lay  in  independent  research. 
That  involved,  as  preparatory,,  the  careful  and 
repeated  reading  of  the  Old  Testament  in  Hebrew. 
The  price  was  a  heavy  one,  for  one  who  had  be- 
come rusty  in  the  old  Semitic  tongue  ;  but  it  must 
be  ungrudgingly  paid  by  every  man  who  would 
be  sure  of  his  ground.  The  problems  which 
criticism  raises  must  not  and  can  not  be  left  to 


GKNERAI,  SURVEY.  ll 

specialists.  They  must  be  canvassed  by  the  men 
who  occupy  the  pulpits,  that  they  may  speak 
with  authority,  though  never  with  ostentation. 
They  will  be  least  obtruded  into  preaching  by 
those  who  are  most  familiar  with  them.  Still, 
the  call  of  the  hour  is  for  preachers  who  can  and 
do  read  the  Hebrew  of  the  Old  Testament,  as 
readily  and  habitually  as  they  read  the  Greek  of 
the  New.  And  the  men  who  do  that,  should  and 
will  preach  the  simplest  Gospel. 

CRITICISM     LARGELY    CONJECTURAL. 

One  thing  which  the  last  eight  years  have 
taught  me  is  that  the  questions  which  criticism 
raises  cannot  be  settled  by  mere  argument.  De- 
monstration is  out  of  the  question.  Probability 
is  all  that  can  be  reached,  and  in  the  logic  of 
probability  much  depends  upon  pre-suppositions, 
and  upon  the  personal  peculiarities  of  the  critic. 
There  are  no  perfedl  eyes — some  are  even  color- 
blind. There  are  no  perfedl  ears — tones  which 
to  some  are  distincfl  and  sweet  may  be  faint  and 
unmusical  to  others.  There  are  no  perfecft  critics 
— every  man  brings  his  temperament  to  the  task. 


12  OI.D   TE^STAME^N'T   UNDE^R    FIRK. 

This  is  true  of  even  textual  criticism.  Tischen- 
dorf  and  Tregelles  do  not  agree  in  their  esti- 
mate of  the  relative  importance  of  the  ancient 
manuscripts.  The  text  of  the  New  Testament 
must  remain  uncertain  so  long  as  the  original 
autographs  are  beyond  our  reach,  and  every  in- 
telligent Greek  reader  will  exercise  his  liberty  in 
the  choice  of  renderings.  The  variations  are  con- 
fessedly of  no  practical  importance,  but  they  serve 
to  show  that  there  is  considerable  margin  for  the 
exercise  of  personal  ingenuity  and  judgment. 
What  convinces  one  man  will  not  convince  an- 
other, and  an  authoritative  dictum  cannot  be 
reached.  Much  less  can  such  a  finality  be 
reached  in  the  literary  criticism  of  the  Biblical 
documents.  The  principles  of  literary  criticism 
have  never  been  formulated.  Where  the  attempt 
has  been  made,  the  results  have  often  been 
squarely  set  aside  by  the  fadls.  Genius  has 
many  moods,  and  does  not  work  in  a  mechanical 
harness.  Sometimes  it  crawls,  and  then  suddenly 
it  rises  upon  wings  of  power.  Its  vocabulary  is 
not  always  the  same.  Its  style  changes.  It 
shifts  the  point  of  observation.     Its  produdls  are 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  1 3 

not  of  the  same  grade.  Different  readers  will  be 
attracfted  by  different  tones.  Some  will  regard 
this,  others  will  regard  that,  as  distindtive  and 
peculiar.  The  critic  always  carries  his  own  tastes 
to  the  task  of  analysis  and  comparison.  Long 
lists  of  words,  peculiarities  of  style,  philosophical 
or  theological  colorings,  are  always  more  or  less 
uncertain  as  data  of  impregnable  conclusions. 

Hence,  literary  criticism  has  always  revealed  a 
wide  margin  of  conjecfture.  Its  theories  have 
been  working  hypotheses,  often  overthrown 
when  they  seemed  to  have  been  firmly  estab- 
lished. Some  claim  that  the  style  of  the  Elohist 
is  easiest  of  dete(5lion  ;  others  think  that  the  style 
of  the  Jahvist  has  been  preserved  in  the  greatest 
purity;  others,  again,  contend  that  the  Redacftor 
has  tampered  with  all  styles,  and  made  up  a  lit- 
erary mosaic  which  makes  it  impossible  to  bring 
perfecft  order  out  of  the  confusion.  Our  work  is 
reduced  to  happy  guesses.  And  when  this  latter 
theory  is  maintained,  simple-minded  readers  will 
conclude  that  the  mysterious  and  mischievous 
Reda(5lor  may  have  been  the  original  author,  and 
not  a  compiler  of  separate  and  divergent  docu- 


14  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

ments,  so  that  it  might  have  been  Moses,  as  well 
as  any  one  else.  Literary  criticism  is  not  so  sim- 
ple a  matter  as  it  seems  to  be.  It  bristles  with 
conjedlures.  It  is  far  from  being  stri(5lly  scien- 
tific. Personality  has  its  hidden  and  unfathom- 
able depths.  The  stronger  the  personality,  the 
more  varied  will  be  its  expression.  It  is  never 
safe  to  predidl  what  another  man  may  do,  and 
how  he  will  do  it  ;  nor  what  he  will  say,  and  how 
he  will  say  it.  We  must  understand  all  his  sus- 
ceptibilities and  moods,  and  all  their  possible 
combinations;  and  this  cannot  be  done  a  priori. 
The  man  must  be  judged  by  what  he  has  done 
or  written;  he  cannot  first  be  measured,  and 
his  writings  sifted  and  separated  under  the 
assumed  formula.  Time,  too,  must  be  taken. into 
account.  Haifa  century  may  completely  revolu- 
tionize a  man's  style;  and  a  change  of  w^ork  may 
produce  the  same  result.  Grant  was  a  soldier, 
and  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  nation.  But  his  mil- 
itary orders  and  reports  are  very  different  from 
his  inaugural  addresses  and  annual  messages.  It 
would  not  be  hard  to  prove  that  General  Grant 
and  President   Grant  could   not   have   been  the 


GKNKRAI,  SURVKY.  1 5 

same  person;  but  the  learned  criticism  would  be 
laughed  out  of  court. 

At  present  the  argument  from  style  is  held  in 
abeyance,  and  regarded  as  only  supplementary; 
the  appeal  is  to  variety  of  contents  and  to  differ- 
ence in  conception.  As  if  a  poet  could  not  write 
prose,  and  a  prose  author  could  not  write 
poetry.  Coleridge  did  both  well.  A  man  may 
be  learned  in  the  law,  and  be  able  also  to  make  a 
popular  address.  The  transition  from  one  theme 
to  another,  with  the  inevitable  accompaniment  of 
a  change  in  vocabulary,  does  not  prove  the 
agency  of  different  authors.  The  point  in  all  this 
is  simply,  that  literary  criticism  is  so  largely  sub- 
jedlive  and  conjecftural,  that  one  may  be  excused 
for  .shrugging  his  shoulders  when  it  becomes  dog- 
matic and  censorious. 

CRITICAL    PROBLEMS    INSOLUBLE. 

A  second  lesson  which  I  have  learned,  is  that 
while  the  present  problems  of  the  Old  Testament 
are  perfec?tly  legitimate,  their  satisfactory  solution 
is  something  which  need  not  be  looked  for.  No 
new  Bible  will  be  the  outcome.      Agreed  as  most 


1 6  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

critics  are  as  to  the  quartet  of  documents  in  the 
Hexateuch,  they  are  not  sure  of  their  original 
form  and  contents.  Not  one  of  them,  we  are 
told,  exists  in  its  original  integrity  and  complete- 
ness. The  Redadtor  has  scissored  them  all.  Not 
only  are  there  four  imperfect  documents,  but  each 
document  has  been  compiled  from  many  sources, 
which  is  declared  to  be  pre-eminently  true  of  the 
Priest-code.  Nor  are  the  critics  agreed  as  to  the 
date  and  the  relative  antiquity  of  the  documents. 
The  older  scholars  placed  the  Elohist  first,  but 
the  present  school  makes  him  the  last  in  the  line  ; 
and  the  inversion  compels  the  claim,  that  the 
poem  of  creation  is  an  introducflion  to  Genesis, 
added  by  the  latest  of  the  great  unknown  four,  or 
by  their  editor. 

The  second  chapter  of  Genesis  is  supposed  to 
contain  a  duplicate  account  of  the  creation,  and 
the  history  of  the  deluge  is  dissecfted  as  proving 
that  two  descriptions  have  been  bunglingly  united. 
It  may  provoke  a  smile  from  some  specialists, 
but  honesty  compels  me  to  say  that,  while  I  have 
no  prejudice  against  the  analysis,  the  arguments 
advanced  have  not  convinced  me.     The  first  and 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  I 7 

second  chapters  of  Genesis  do  not  seem  to  me  to 
contain  duplicate  accounts  of  the  creation.  The 
second  chapter  is  an  advance  upon  the  first.  Pro- 
fessor Green  appears  to  me  to  have  fully  answered 
President  Harper.  And  I  can  discover  no  such 
contradidlions  or  variations  in  the  account  of  the 
deluge,  as  is  assumed  and  maintained.  This  may 
be  because  I  am  not  a  specialist,  and  am  lacking 
in  literary  tact ;  but  the  independent  reader  will 
have  to  be  taken  into  account,  if  the  specialist  ex- 
pe<5ls  to  give  currency  to  his  analysis.  What  has 
been  said  of  exegesis  is  true  of  criticism,  which 
is  only  a  branch  of  exegesis,  that  its  corredlness 
must  be  determined  by  the  intelligent  consensus 
of  Christendom. 

More  than  this.  The  literary  criticism  of  the 
Old  Testament  has  ceased  to  trouble  me,  because 
I  have  a  strong  convidlion  that  the  problem  upon 
which  it  is  at  work  is  hopelessly  insoluble.  The 
history  of  New  Testament  criticism  affords  an 
instrudlive  example.  The  synoptic  problem  is 
the  most  intricate  and  fascinating  of  all  questions 
of  the  later  Biblical  literature.  Every  possible 
combination  has  been  suggested  ;  the  most  exadl 


1 8  OLD    TKSTAMKNT    UNDER    FIRE. 

and  exhaustive  analysis  has  been  made  ;  and  the 
result  is  failure  along  the  whole  line.  There  is 
only  conje6lure  ;  and  the  simplest  theory  is  as 
good  as  any,  that  the  gospels  are  independent  of 
each  other,  though  resting  upon  a  common  tra- 
dition, and  that  the  sources  from  which  they  were 
compiled  cannot  now  be  tabulated.  The  authors 
have  not  given  us  their  authorities,  and  we  cannot 
make  good  the  literary  omission. 

The  composition  of  the  Pentateuch  is  a  problem 
of  tenfold  greater  difficulty.  It  lies  much  farther 
away  from  our  time.  We  have  no  other  writings 
of  similar  traditional  antiquity  with  which  to 
compare  it.  Its  Mosaic  authorship  was  once 
denied  on  the  ground  that  the  age  was  illiterate, 
and  that  writing  was  unknown.  But  recent  dis- 
coveries in  the  valle3^s  of  the  Nile  and  the  Eu- 
phrates, have  exploded  that  assumption.  Unless 
Moses  be  resolved  into  a  purel}^  mythical  figure, 
he  must  have  known  how  to  write;  and  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  peculiar  vocation  would  have 
impelled  him  to  write.  How  much  did  he  write  ? 
What  documents,  and  how  man}-,  did  he  have  in 
his  possession  ?     Who  can  tell  ?     He  has  not  told 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  1 9 

US  ;  and  if  he  did  not  write  a  line,  tlie  men  who 
did  write  the  documents  have  not  affixed  their 
names,  and  they  have  not  told  us  whence  they 
derived  their  information.  A  modern  writer 
takes  pains  to  tell  us  what  authorities  he  has 
consulted,  and  adds  numerous  notes  to  the  text. 
But  the  Pentateuch  has  neither  note  nor  appen- 
dix. Nearly  twenty-five  hundred  years  have 
passed  since  the  Kxile  ;  and  if  Ezra  knew  any- 
thing of  these  matters  he  has  given  no  sign. 
Take  any  modern  book,  with  all  contemporary 
literature  at  our  command,  but  with  no  quotation 
marks  or  confessions  of  indebtedness,  would  not 
the  literary  analysis  of  its  sources  be  a  task  of  great 
difficulty  ?  But  the  sources  of  the  Hexateuch 
and  of  the  historical  books  have  no  independent 
existence.  Comparison  cannot  be  made.  Such 
documents  as  existed  have  long  since  perished. 
Is  it  not  a  Gordian  knot  which  the  critics  are 
trying  to  unravel,  and  who  is  the  Alexander  that 
he  should  cut  the  knot  with  the  sword,  and  then 
claim  that  he  had  untied  it  ?  Apart  from  tradi- 
tion, the  literary  problem  is  insoluble;  and  the 
only  question  of  importance  is  whether  the  record 


20  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

as  it  stands,  bears  upon  it  the  stamp  of  general 
truthfulness. 

LITERARY  CRITICISM  SUBORDINATE  TO  HISTORICAL. 

The  third  lesson  which  I  have  learned  is,  that 
the  literary  criticism  of  the  Biblical  documents  is, 
in  grave  and  essential  importance,  subordinate  to 
the  historical  criticism  of  their  contents.  In  fact, 
literary  criticism  may  almost  be  said  to  have  be- 
come the  servant  of  historical  criticism.  The 
crucial  question  is,  whether  the  Old  Testament  is 
substantially  correct  in  the  account  which  it  gives 
of  the  rise  and  development  of  true  religion,  and 
of  its  culmination  in  the  Messiah  of  law  and  psalm 
and  prophecy.  And  here,  there  is  a  subtle  quality 
in  its  literary  substance  and  form,  which  wins  my 
confidence  the  more  familiar  I  become  with  it.  It 
is  pervaded  by  a  high  ethical  tone.  It  does  not 
picfture  ideal  heroes.  It  sketches  the  shame  as 
well  as  the  glory,  and  both  with  literary  sim- 
plicity. It  exalts  the  veracity  of  God — His  per- 
sonal veracity  as  holiness,  and  His  veracity  in 
dealing  with  men,  as  remembering  and  keeping 
His  covenant.     The  prophets  never  flatter.  They 


GE^NEjRAlv   SURVEY.  21 

speak  words  of  truth  and  soberness.  A  lying  his- 
tory could  not  have  been  written  by  men  breath- 
ing such  an  atmosphere.  Be  the  difficulties  of 
harmonizing  what  they  may,  were  they  tenfold 
greater  than  they  are,  they  do  not  and  could  not 
compare  with  the  monstrosity  of  a  forged  and 
false  history,  issuing  from  men  who  hated  and 
denounced  lying. 

But  more.  One  thing  criticism  has  been 
forced  to  grant :  There  was  a  Moses.  His 
was  the  commanding  and  creative  personality. 
He  planted  the  acorn,  if  he  did  not  create  the 
wide-branching  tree.  The  theology  and  the 
ritual  of  the  Old  Testament  bear  his  impress. 
There  was  an  ark,  and  a  tent,  and  sacrifices, 
and  a  written  law,  before  there  was  a  temple. 
Monotheism  was  not  a  product  of  the  prophetic 
era.  It  was  present  and  active  from  the  very 
first,  though  only  in  germ,  as  a  religious  force 
rather  than  a  theological  dogma,  and  though 
it  required  many  centuries  and  many  a  severe 
struggle  to  give  it  exclusive  and  universal  ascend- 
ancy. So  much  stands,  whatever  reconstru(5lion 
of  the  history  is  ventured  upon.     The  nation  was 


21  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

right  when  it  said  :  * '  Abraham  is  our  father,  and 
Moses  our  lawgiver."  And,  with  so  much 
granted,  a  good  deal  more  will  have  to  be  yielded. 
The  revolutionary  criticism  seems  to  have  reached 
its  limits,  and  it  is  already  retreating  to  a  more 
moderate  position,  where  the  prophets  will  not  be 
left  without  a  theological  ancestry,  and  where  the 
second  temple  will  not  be  made  the  creation  of 
Kzekiel's  fancy  and  of  Ezra's  manipulation. 

UNWARRANTABLE     ASSUMPTIONS      OF    DESTRUCTIVE 
CRITICISM. 

The  fourth  lesson  which  I  have  learned  is,  that 
historical  criticism  of  the  Old  Testament,  so  far 
as  its  results  are  revolutionar}'-  and  destrucftive, 
proceeds  upon  utterly  unwarrantable  assumptions. 
It  denies  the  reality  of  supernatural  revelation 
and  guidance.  It  sneers  at  miracles,  and  dis- 
credits any  history  which  contains  them.  It 
resolves  prediAions  into  happy  guesses,  or  re- 
gards them  as  uttered  post  eventum.  It  claims 
that,  where  a  law  is  generally  disregarded  and 
violated,  the  statute  could  not  have  existed.  It 
insists  that  a  steady  upward  evolution  is  the  uni- 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  23 

versal  law  of  history,  and  that  Israel  therefore 
could  not  have  fallen  from  monotheism  into  idola- 
try, but  must  have  risen  from  fetichism  into  mon- 
otheism. Taking  so  much  for  granted,  the 
attempt  to  prove  the  recorded  history  misleading 
and  incredible  is  a  needless  task. 

But  every  one  of  these  assumptions  is  unscien- 
tific, and  is  discredited  by  history.  Revelation  is 
a  permanent  feature  of  life,  as  our  ethical  intui- 
tions and  religious  aspirations  prove.  Conscience 
is  the  mightiest  of  forces,  supporting  the  authoritj^ 
of  moral  law  as  uncreated  and  eternal  ;  and  con- 
science and  moral  law  bring  all  life  into  living  con- 
tacft  with  the  supernatural  and  spiritual.  God  is 
immanent  in  the  life  of  the  world.  Theism  granted , 
and  miracles  are  possible,  wdiilethe  resurrecftion  of 
Jesus  Christ  blocks  the  path  of  every  man,  who 
ventures  upon  their  universal  rejecftion.  All  his- 
tor}^  is  luminous  with  ethical  ideals  which  have 
been  widely  disregarded.  The  golden  rule  is  not 
even  now  obeyed  ;  did  not  Christ  then  utter  the 
words  ?  And  is  it  true  that  an  unbroken  line  of 
upward  development  is  the  story  which  history 
tells  ?     Its  pages  are  full  of  the  record  of  political 


24  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

and  religious  apostasies.  The  early  days  of 
Greece  were  the  best.  The  first  centuries  of 
Rome  were  the  brightest.  Primitive  Christianity 
was  better  than  its  mediaeval  type,  and  our  theo- 
logical reformers  make  the  cry,  '  *  Back  to  Christ, ' ' 
their  watchword.  The  record  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment religion  corresponds,  in  its  broad  outlines, 
to  the  general  hivStory  of  the  world,  a  constant 
and  fierce  battle,  a  succession  of  apostasies  and 
reformations.  Destrudlive  criticism  discredits  its 
own  results  by  its  unhistorical  and  unscientific 
assumptions;  and  as  the  foundations  are  laid  in 
the  quicksand,  the  elaborate  superstrudlure  is 
doomed  to  collapse  without  the  cost  and  the 
fatigue  of  bombardment.  When  historical  criti- 
cism ceases  to  make  its  conclusions  the  premises 
of  its  argument,  it  will  be  time  enough  to  take  it 
seriously. 

CHARGES    OF    LITERARY    FORGERY. 

I  pass  to  a  fifth  point.  If  the  philosophical 
postulates  of  destru(5live  criticism  are  unscientific 
and  unhistorical,  the  conscious  and  wholesale 
literary  immorality  which  it  charges  upon  the 


GENERAIv  SURVEY.  25 

Biblical  writers,  provokes  the  resentment  of  every 
fair-minded  student.  It  would  not  be  so  bad  if 
the  literature  were  evaporated  into  romance.  But 
it  is  branded  as  counterfeit,  and  as  deliberately 
reversing  the  order  of  facfts,  as  transferring  to 
ancient  times  what  was  an  afterthought  and  a  late 
priestly  invention.  Deuteronomy  is  declared  not 
to  have  been  found  in  Josiah's  reign  by  Hilkiah, 
but  to  have  been  written  by  him,  and  palmed  off 
upon  the  king  and  the  nation,  as  a  credible  record 
of  what  Moses  said  and  commanded  in  the  plains 
of  Moab.  We  are  told  that  this  pious  a<5l  must 
not  be  condemned  as  forgery,  because  literary 
methods  were  not  as  stri(5l  as  they  now  are,  and 
that  wholesale  plagiarism  was  universally  prac- 
tised ;  that  speeches  were  credited  to  men  which 
they  never  uttered,  and  which  only  represented 
what  the  author  imagined  they  might  or  must 
have  said  ;  and  that  the  emergency  which  con- 
fronted Josiah  was  such,  that  extraordinary  meas- 
ures were  required  to  meet  it.  But  we  look  in 
vain,  through  the  ethics  of  the  prophetical  litera- 
ture, w^hich  confessedly  was  in  existence  at  that 
time,  for  any  intimation  that  the  end  justifies  the 


26  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

means.  Every  prophet  would  have  denounced 
the  maxim  ;  and  this  prophetic  environment 
makes  it  incredible  that  so  stupendous  a  literary 
invention,  upon  which  the  political  fortunes  of  so 
many  depended,  could  have  been  undertaken  and 
carried  forward  to  success.  The  audacity  of  the 
priest  amazes  one,  and  the  stupidity  of  the  people 
passes  comprehension.  Was  there  no  way  of 
determining  whether  Hilkiah's  roll  was  an  old  or 
a  new  one  ?  It  was  not  kept  under  lock  and  key. 
It  was  read  not  only  to  Shaphan,  the  scribe,  as 
a  co-conspirator,  but  also  to  the  king,  who  was 
not  let  into  the  secret,  and  then  to  large  public 
assemblies  which  the  king  summoned.  Friends 
and  foes  of  the  reform  movement  were  present, 
saw,  and  heard,  and  not  a  voice  was  lifted  against 
the  solemn  covenant  which  was  publicly  entered 
into  over  this  roll  which  Hilkiah  had  produced  ; 
and  yet  it  w^as  all  an  invention  !  Seriousl}^,  "what 
shall  be  said  of  such  historical  criticism  ? 

Much  in  the  same  way  the  middle  books  of  the 
Pentateuch  are  declared  to  be  a  post-exilian  pro- 
duct, the  work  of  an  ambiti  3Ub  priesthood,  who 
dressed  up  their  ordinances  in  the  literary  gar- 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  27 

merits  of  the  wilderness  life,  to  give  them  easy 
currenc}^  among  the  people,  and  then  invented 
the  whole  series  of  patriarchal  stories  as  a  fitting 
imaginary  introdu(5lion.  Moses  cannot  be  regarded 
as  the  anthor  even  of  the  Decalogue.  To  admit 
that,  would  involve  the  high  antiquity  of  the  first 
chapter  of  Genesis.  The  Psalter  is  brought  down 
bodily  to  the  period  of  the  second  temple,  and 
David  vanishes  from  its  pages  altogether.  Joel 
cannot  possibly  be  allowed  a  place  among  the 
older  prophets,  because  his  testimony  to  the 
ancient  ritual  is  too  varied  and  explicit.  Chron- 
icles is  a  priestly  fabrication  throughout,  and 
wholly  unworthy  of  credence.  If  similar  pas- 
sages are  found  in  Judges  and  Kings,  subtle,  art- 
less, and  undesigned  coincidences,  they  are  quietl}^ 
checked  off  as  interrupting  the  narrative,  intro- 
ducing irrelevant  ideas,  and  interpolations  by  an 
unknown  priestly  redadlor.  Such  critical  judg- 
ments would  be  strange  enough  if  the  books  in 
question  were  on^^  private  pamphlets,  having  a 
narrow  and  ofiicial  circulation.  But  the  hypo- 
thesis is  a  most  monstrous  one,  when  it  is  applied 
to  documents  which  constituted  a  popular  litera- 


28  OI.D   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRE. 

ture,  which  passed  into  many  hands  and  were 
freely  circulated,  and  which  were  divided  into 
pericopes  and  regularly  read  in  a  thousand  syna- 
gogues. As  well  suppose  that  Robiiisoyi  Crusoe 
and  the  Arabian  Nights  will  ever  be  read  in  our 
churches  with  the  gospels  and  the  epistles.  The 
theory  brings  the  indicSlment  of  forgery  against 
the  entire  nation,  a  supposition  so  violent  that  it 
needs  only  to  be  plainly  stated,  to  be  instantly  and 
indignantly  rejedled.  The  nation's  imprimatur 
will  count  for  something  with  every  reader,  who 
has  no  particular  theory  to  defend.  He  may  find 
difficulties  and  discrepancies,  as  he  does  in  any 
similar  historical  record,  but  he  cannot  regard  the 
entire  literature  a  lie. 

The  tortuous  way  in  which  even  moderately 
conservative  critics  deal  with  Hilkiah's  discovery 
of  Deuteronomy,  has  a  tendency  to  create  a  pro- 
found distrust  of  the  literary  ethics  of  the  critical 
procedure.  Canon  Driver  and  Professor  Briggs 
shrink  from  the  plain  charges  of  forgery  preferred 
by  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen,  but  they  save  the 
honesty  of  the  main  a(5lors  in  the  scene,  only  by 
somewhat  minimizing  their  crime,  and  by  the  use 


GKNKRAL  SURVEY.  29 

of  dexterous  phrases,  which  they  imagine  convert 
the  procedure  into  something  legitimate  and 
praiseworthy.  Canon  Driver  intimates  that  the 
kernel  of  Deuteronomy  is  old  and  of  Mosaic 
origin,  but  that  its  ''parenetic  setting"  belongs 
to  the  age  of  Josiah,  and  that  it  may  be  described 
as  the  ' '  prophetic  reformulation  and  adaptation  to 
new  needs  of  an  older  legislation."  Professor 
Briggs  is  somewhat  more  blunt,  when  he  says 
that  Hilkiah  is  not  the  author  of  the  Deuteron- 
oniic  Code,  but  of  "a  new  codification  of  an 
ancient  code,"  of  an  ancient  code  which  was 
found,  and  which  after  its  discovery  was  cast  into 
a  nev/  historical  form.  His  theory  is  that  "an 
ancient  Mosaic  code  was  discovered  in  Josiah' s 
time,  and  that  the  code  was  put  into  popular 
rhetorical  form,  as  a  people's  law  book  for  pracftical 
purposes,  under  the  authorit}^  of  king,  prophet, 
and  priest. ' ' 

This,  we  are  told,  we  are  at  liberty  to  "■sup- 
pose.'' Certainly,  and  we  may  suppose  a  great 
many  more  things,  without  a  scintilla  of  evi- 
dence, and  squarely  in  the  face  of  the  record. 
The  roll,  whatever  it  may  have  contained,  is  said 


30  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

to  have  been  found,  and  to  have  been  read,  as 
found,  to  Shaphan,  to  the  king,  and  to  the  people. 
There  is  no  intimation  of  a  recodification,  or  of 
the  addition  of  a  new  "  parenetic  setting. "  It 
does  not  help  the  matter  to  say  that  the  literary 
forgery  was  only  in  the  dress.  Coin  is  none  the 
less  counterfeit  because  it  contains  a  little  genuine 
metal.  If  we  may  suppose  that  the  parenetic 
setting  was  invented,  wdiy  must  we  suppose  the 
code  to  have  been  ancient?  Whatever  date  may 
be  assigned  to  Deuteronomy,  assuming  Hilkiah's 
roll  to  have  been  the  original  Deuteronomy  — 
which  cannot  be  proved  —  it  would  seem  to  be 
clear  that  there  cannot  be  any  middle  ground 
between  its  being  a  wholesale  literary  fraud,  and 
its  discovery  in  its  present  form  in  Josiah's  reign. 
Its  present  ' '  parenetic  setting  ' '  may  have  been 
given  to  it  long  after  Moses,  but  to  regard  the 
*  *  parenetic  setting  "  as  a  later  literary  artifice, 
and  the  attempt  to  associate  that  setting  with  the 
discovery  of  an  ancient  code  by  Hilkiah,  is  sub- 
stantially a  surrender  to  Wellhausen.  It  is  not  so 
intended  ;  but  plain  men  will  not  be  able  to  make 
anything  else  out  of  it.     The  critics  mean  well, 


GENERAL   SURVEY.  3 1 

but  they  show  a  strange  ethical  twist,  when  they 
deceive  themselves  by  phrases  and  conjecftures, 
whose  emptiness  appears  as  soon  as  they  are 
stripped  of  their  rhetoric. 

RECENT  LEADERS  OF  THE  MEDIATING  SCHOOL. 

The  deserved  prominence  of  Professor  Briggs 
as  a  Biblical  critic,  and  the  wide  attention  which 
his  utterances  and  trial  have  commanded,  justify 
a  brief  reference  to  his  last  book  as  outlining  his 
present  position.  In  it  he  professes  to  have  given 
the  results  of  twenty-seven  years  of  critical  study, 
and  Christian  scholarship  had  a  right  to  expect 
as  strong  and  conclusive  an  argument  as  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  give.  Candor  compels  me  to 
say  that  the  reader  is  doomed  to  bitter  disap- 
pointment, and  can  only  close  the  volume  with 
the  certain  conviction  that  the  author  has  not 
solved  the  problems  of  Old  Testament  criticism. 
The  book  is  a  strange  medley,  consisting  of  sev- 
eral documents  of  earlier  publication,  which  have 
been  amended,  expanded,  or  contracted,  with 
numerous  interpolations  of  sentences  and  para- 
graphs, and  with  equally  numerous  reversals  of 


32  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

previous  judgments.  It  is  pradlically  an  aban- 
donment of  the  conservative  ground  which  the 
author  held  ten  years  before,  a  conservatism 
which  at  that  time  was  regarded  as  dangerous 
liberalism.  At  that  earlier  period  he  had  already 
occupied  a  professor's  chair  for  fourteen  years, 
and  had  been  a  specialist  in  Old  Testament 
studies  for  seventeen  years.  He  had  mastered 
the  literature  of  the  whole  subject,  and  the  theo- 
ries of  Graf,  Kuenen,  and  Wellhausen  had  long 
been  familiar  to  scholars.  Ten  years  before  the 
date  of  his  last  book,  his  judgment  of  the  com- 
position and  authorship  of  the  Pentateuch  was 
stated  in  these  words:  "  There  is  nothing  in  the 
variation  of  the  documents,  as  such,  to  require 
that  they  should  be  successive  and  separated  by 
wide  interv^als,  or  that  would  prevent  their  being 
very  nearly  contemporaneous.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  distinction  of  the  documents,  as  such,,  that 
forbids  the  Mosaic  age  as  the  time  of  their  origin. ' ' 
On  the  date  of  Deuteronomy,  Professor  Briggs 
declared  in  1883,  that  De  Wette's  theory  was 
''  exceedingly  precarious."  He  claimed  to  have 
disproved,    against    De  Wette,    the    location   of 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  33 

Deuteronomy  in  the  age  of  Josiah,  and  to  have 
shown  that  its  origin  must  be  thrown  back  into 
the  Mosaic  age.  As  to  the  post-exilian  origin  of 
the  Priest-code  he  maintained  that  there  were 
' '  insuperable  objections  ' '  to  such  a  theory,  and  he 
presented  his  reasons  in  detail.  He  admitted  the 
order  of  development,  for  which  Kuenen  and 
Wellhausen  contended  —  a  most  vicious  conces- 
sion —  but  he  denied  ' '  that  it  was  necessary  to 
postulate  a  thousand  years  for  this  development, ' ' 
and  he  suggested  that  ' '  if  we  should  suppose 
that  Kleazar  or  some  other  priest  gathered  these 
detailed  laws  and  groups  of  laws  into  a  code  at 
the  time  subsequent  to  the  conquest,  all  the  con- 
ditions of  variation  and  development  might  be 
explained." 

Between  this,  and  the  contention  of  1893,  the 
gulf  is  deep  and  wide.  The  last  book  displays 
no  greater  learning  than  the  earlier  essays,  and 
in  logical  vigor  it  is  decidedly  inferior.  His  last 
volume  has  certainly  not  added  to  his  reputation. 
Its  learning  is  undigested.  The  material  is 
chaotic.  The  tone  of  argument  is  not  judicial. 
There  is  a  painful  want   of  logical  clearness  and 


34  OI.D   TESTAMENl    UNDER   FIRE. 

consistenc3^  Ingenious  suggestions  take  the 
place  of  proof.  Dangerous  and  revolutionary 
theories  are  modified  by  a  personal  caveat.  Their 
logical  issue  is  simply  evaded.  Names  are  made 
to  take  the  place  of  evidence.  The  reader  is 
overawed  by  a  list  of  authorities,  in  which  all 
schools  are  indiscriminately  jumbled  together. 
The  counter  arguments  are  in  the  main  ignored, 
and  conservative  critics  are  labeled  in  schoolboy 
fashion.  The  reader  who  can  divest  himself  of 
prejudice,  lays  down  the  book  with  the  feeling 
that,  if  this  is  the  best  that  can  be  said,  the  pro- 
blem has  not  even  been  clearly  stated,  and  that 
its  solution  is  a  long  way  off.  And  the  same 
judgment  must  be  passed  upon  Canon  Driver's 
book,  which  Professor  Briggs  speaks  of  as  ' '  in- 
valuable," many  a  page  of  which  bristles  with 
assumptions  for  which  not  the  slightest  evidence 
is  given.  The  critical  processes  are  reverential  in 
spirit,  but  they  are  very  far  from  being  severely 
scientific;  and  the  historical  criticism  is  thoroughly 
loose  and  arbitrary.  The  traditional  view  of  the 
origin  of  the  present  Pentateuch  may  require 
modification,    but   the  present    mediating   school 


GENKRAI,  SURVEY.  35 

cannot  be  said  to  have  defended  the  credibility  of 
the  Old  Testament,  and  its  claim  to  being  the 
record  of  a  divine  revelation,  against  the  assaults 
of  the  destructive  critics. 

Perhaps  one  of  the  fairest  specimens  of  the 
present  mediating  school,  which  seeks  to  retain 
the  divine  authority  of  the  Old  Testament  as  a 
gradually  unfolding  religious  revelation,  while 
regarding  the  literature  as  a  late  producftion, 
largely  composed  of  mythical  and  legendary  ele- 
ments, and  worthless  in  many  parts  as  historical 
material,  is  the  treatise  on  Old  Testajiient  Theology, 
by  Dr.  Hermann  Schultz,  of  Gottingen,  a  w^ork 
now  accessible  to  English  readers.  The  tone  is 
calm  and  the  spirit  is  reverent.  The  reality  of  a 
divine  revelation  in  the  produdlion  of  the  ancient 
faith  is  conceded  and  maintained,  as  demanded  by 
the  conditions  of  the  problem  to  be  solved.  Mono- 
theism in  a  religious  form  is  affirmed  to  have 
been  the  pre-Mosaic  faith  in  Israel,  though  Moses 
did  much  to  give  it  prominence,  while  the  pro- 
phets are  credited  with  giving  it  theological  form. 
The  deliverance  from  the  bondage  of  Eg3'pt  is 
regarded    as   a    historical   facft,     as    everywhere 


36  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

assumed,  inextricably  interwoven  with  all  the 
subsequent  history,  though  the  miracles  are 
passed  over  in  silence.  Moses  cannot  be  a  myth. 
He  is  not  the  author  of  the  Decalogue  in  its  pre- 
sent form,  because  the  stern  prohibition  against 
the  use  of  images  in  divine  worship  points  unmis- 
takably to  a  later  period,  though  in  some  form 
the  Ten  Commandments  must  be  acknowledged 
as  the  basis  of  his  legislation.  There  was  an  ark 
which  was  sheltered  by  a  tent,  though  the  taber- 
nacle is  the  creation  of  later  poetic  fancy;  its 
description  being  ' '  not  a  delineation  of  an  a(ftual 
thing,  but  a  depidling  of  religious  thoughts  bor- 
rowed from  Solomon's  temple. ' '  The  presence  of 
the  ark  gave  to  Israel  from  the  first  a  national 
san(5luary,  outranking  in  dignity  all  local  altars, 
and  in  that  sandluary  no  image  ever  found  a 
place,  though  the  exclusive  dignity  of  the  sacred 
shrine  which  contained  the  ark,  dates  from  a 
much  later  period,  to  which  David,  Solomon,  and 
other  kings,  contributed.  The  tribe  of  Levi  is 
conceded  to  have  been  a  priestly  class  from  the 
beginning,  though  not  to  the  exclusion  of  other 
individuals,  and  without  such  an  organization  as 


GENERAL  SURVEY.  37 

appears  in  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch. 
Sacrifice  is  an  early  institution.  The  feasts  of 
Tabernacles  and  of  the  Passover  are  of  Mosaic 
origin.  Circumcision  is  a  pre-Mosaic  custom 
and  religious  in  its  meaning,  as  a  consecration  of 
life  to  God. 

This  hasty  review  shows  how  much  the  his- 
torical analysis  feels  constrained  to  grant,  as  a 
basis  upon  which  the  great  prophetic  era  must 
rest.  The  edifice  of  the  ninth  century  before 
Christ,  as  represented  by  the  older  prophets  and 
by  Isaiah,  and  by  the  cultus  of  the  Exile,  must 
have  some  solid  foundation  in  the  ancient  era. 
The  argument  is  unanswerable,  and  its  lines  have 
been  skillfully  followed  by  Professor  Robertson, 
of  Glasgow.  But  it  is  hard  to  see  how  Schultz 
can  concede  so  much,  while  contending  that  the 
literature  of  the  Old  Testament  is  trustworthy 
only  as  showing  what  was  believed  when  that 
literature  was  produced,  and  that  it  cannot  be 
relied  upon  as  a  historical  record.  The  conces- 
sions are  at  war  w4th  the  criticism.  It  is  only  an 
individual  opinion  which  remains,  unsupported 
by  documentary  evidence,  and  such  an  opinion 


38  OI.D  testame:nt  under  fire. 

can  have  no  authority.  Kver}^  man  is  at  liberty 
to  apply  the  brakes  anywhere,  or  to  refuse  apply- 
ing them  anywhere.  Whatever  the  picfture  of  the 
Mosaic  age,  it  must  be  drawn  from  the  literature 
as  it  now^  exists,  a  literature  which,  as  a  whole, 
is  discredited  by  Schultz  as  much  as  it  is  by  Well- 
hausen.  That  literature  is  confessedly  homo- 
geneous, as  even  Kwald  insisted  ;  and  it  w^ould 
seem  that  if  the  literature  is  false  in  Mis,  it  can- 
not be  reliable  in  singulis.  Some,  with  Vernes, 
have  taken  that  step,  and  declare  that  the  entire 
history  is  legendar^^  and  that  the  Mosaic  era 
must  remain  for  us  a  splendid  national  myth. 
And,  to  me  at  least,  the  herculean  labors  of  the 
mediating  school  seem  to  be  an  attempt  to  arrest 
Niagara  by  a  dam  of  straw. 

REAL    DIFFICULTIES    OF    BIBLICAL    CRITICISM. 

The  difficulties  and  the  discrepancies  which 
emerge  in  a  critical  examination  of  the  Scripture 
records,  are  connedted  with  the  minor  details  of 
the  narrative,  and  with  the  fragmentary  nature  of 
the  literature  in  which  the  history  has  been  pre- 
served.    One  peculiarity  of  that  literature  is  that 


GENERAL  SURVEY,  39 

it  is  prophetic,  not  photographic.  It  seizes  upon 
the  great  outstanding  facfts  in  which  the  divine 
discipline  of  the  race,  and  especially  of  the  chosen 
people,  is  most  clearly  manifest,  and  by  which 
the  preparation  for  the  advent  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
most  signally  illustrated.  The  Bible  is  written  in 
a  large  way,  not  in  the  method  of  minute  descrip- 
tive and  chronological  completeness.  We  are 
conducted  over  a  series  of  mountain  peaks,  while 
the  broad  intervening  valleys  are  left  shrouded  in 
mist  and  gloom.  The  lives  of  the  patriarchs  are 
fragmentary  sketches.  The  bondage  in  Egypt 
occupies  only  a  paragraph.  We  look  in  vain  for 
a  biography  of  Moses,  whose  personal  discipline 
of  eighty  years  must  have  had  an  important 
bearing  upon  his  subsequent  public  career.  The 
story  reads  abruptly,  but  the  abruptness  is  due  to 
the  silence  which  covers  the  formative  years. 
Thirt3'-eight  years  of  the  wilderness  life  are 
passed  over  in  silence,  and  we  might  argue  from 
the  silence  that  they  are  a  legendary  addition, 
while,  if  the  silence  were  removed,  the  lost  back- 
ground of  the  priestly  legislation  might  be  recov- 
ered.     Judges,  Samuel  and  Kings  do  not  furnish 


40  OI.D    TESTAMENT    UNDER    FIRE. 

complete  histories.  Here  and  there  we  come  upon 
sharp  and  severe  conflidls  between  monotheism 
and  idolatry,  without  any  intimation  as  to  the 
relative  strength  of  the  opposing  parties,  and 
without  any  sketch  of  the  intervening  periods. 
Even  when  altars  multiplied,  and  sacrifices  were 
offered  on  a  hundred  heights,  a  central  sancftuary 
remained,  with  its  tabernacle  and  ark  and  altar, 
as  in  Samuel's  time,  and  in  the  period  of  the 
kings.  The  ritual  in  use  is  not  described  ;  but 
the  same  silence  charadlerizes  the  mention  of 
idolatrous  forms  of  worship,  though  we  know 
that  these  w^ere  in  charge  of  a  priesthood,  and 
must  have  been  associated  with  a  regular  and 
imposing  ceremonial.  There  was  always  a  rem- 
nant which  resisted  the  popular  current,  and  that 
remnant  always  appealed  to  ancient  usage.  Royal 
authority  might  seize  the  temple  and  corrupt  the 
priesthood  and  ignore  the  ancient  feasts  ;  but  the 
fa6l  that  repeated  attempts  were  made  to  corredl 
these  abuses,  proves  that  the  remembrance  of  the 
older  order  never  wholly  perished. 

If  in  Elijah's  time,  when  Ahab  and  Jezebel 
ruled  in  Samaria,  seven  thousand  had  not  bowed 


GENERAL   SURVEY.  4 1 

the  knee  to  Baal,  we  may  confidently  presume 
that  much  larger  numbers  retained  the  primitive 
faith  under  better  kings.  The  fa(5l  that  royal 
authority  so  often,  and  for  such  long  periods, 
stood  in  the  way  of  a  general  and  orderly  observ- 
ance of  the  appointed  feasts  and  sacrifices,  does 
not  prove  that  there  existed  universal  ignorance 
of  an  ancient  and  Mosaic  ritual,  much  less  that 
such  a  ritual  had  never  been  instituted.  The 
fragmentariness  of  the  record  deprives  the  argu- 
ment from  silence  of  its  adverse  weight,  and  the 
final  triumph  of  the  monotheistic  do(5lrine,  and  of 
the  centralized  ritual,  implies  their  presence  from 
the  earliest  stages  of  the  religious  confli(5l.  That 
there  should  be  variant  accounts  of  the  long  per- 
iods, as  when  Chronicles  and  Kings  are  com- 
pared, is  not  surprising,  when  we  bear  in  mind 
that  no  writer  has  given  a  complete  account  of 
any  single  event  or  reign ;  and  hence,  to  pit 
Judges  and  Samuel  against  the  Pentateuch,  and 
Kings  against  Chronicles,  and  the  prophets 
against  the  Priest-code,  is  a  thoroughly  unscien- 
tific procedure.  That  there  are  difficulties  in 
harmonizing  the  accounts  is  freely  granted,  and 


42  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

the  task  of  historical  reconstrucftion  is  not  an  easy 
one  ;  but  the  problem  is  certainly  not  solved  by 
arraying  the  records  against  each  other,  by 
throwing  the  accessible  materials  into  inextric- 
able confusion,  and  by  charging  the  writers  with 
manipulating  and  even  inventing  the  fa(5ls  in  sup- 
port of  their  theories. 

Similar  difficulties  confront  us  in  harmonizing 
the  evangelistic  narratives,  and  in  reproducing 
the  exa6l  history  of  the  early  Church.  The  gos- 
pels and  the  A(5ls  are  fragmentary  records,  and 
leave  many  questions  unanswered.  If  we  had 
only  the  Synoptists,  we  might  conclude  that  our 
lyord's  public  ministry  lasted  only  a  single  year. 
The  fourth  gospel  compels  us  to  adopt  a  different 
chronology.  There  are  varying  reports  of  the 
same  miracles,  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount,  and  of  Christ's  dying  utter- 
ances. The  different  accounts  of  the  resurre<5lion 
of  our  Lord  cannot  be  harmonized.  It  was  not 
within  the  range  of  human  possibility  to  give  a 
perfedlly  accurate  or  photographic  description  of 
so  momentous  an  event.  The  resurrecftion  itself, 
like  the  creation  or  incarnation,  was  an  invisible 


GENERAI.  SURVEY.  43 

and  inscrutable  miracle.  No  one  saw  the  Cruci- 
fied rising  from  the  sepulcher.  The  agreement 
is  peife(5l  that  Christ  was  seen  after  He  had  risen 
from  the  dead,  and  that  is  the  only  thing  of  im- 
portance. Who  was  first  at  the  grave,  and 
whether  there  were  two  angels  or  only  one,  are 
matters  of  insignificance.  So,  while  there  is  gen- 
eral agreement  between  the  narrative  in  Acts  and  in 
the  Pauline  epistles,  there  are  minor  details  which 
present  difficulties  in  completely  harmonizing  the 
different  accounts.  Such  imperfections  belong  to 
all  historical  literature.  Its  credibility  is  limited 
to  the  general  lines  of  movement ;  variant  and 
even  contradicftory  accounts  appear  as  soon  as 
unimportant  details  are  brought  into  the  stor}-. 
There  is  no  agreement  as  to  the  hour  of  day  on 
which  the  battle  of  Waterloo  was  fought  ;  bitt 
Waterloo  was  fought.  There  are  square  contra- 
di(5lions  as  to  the  place  where  Bismarck  and  Na- 
poleon met  at  Sedan  ;  but  Napoleon  surrendej^ed  at 
Sedan.  The  main  fadl  is  not  discredited  by  the 
variant  and  even  contradidlory  testimony  concern- 
ing minor  details.  It  would  be  easy,  adopting 
the  methods  of  the  current  Old  Testament  criti- 


44  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

cism,  to  discredit  the  entire  traditional  history  of 
the  Plymouth  Colony,  and  to  resolve  it  into  an 
admixture  of  fadl  and  lidlion,  by  pitting  the  wri- 
tings of  Bradford  against  those  of  Winslow,  and 
by  showing  that  in  some  particulars  Bradford's 
history  is  contradicted  by  his  Letter  Book. 

GENERAL    CREDIBILITY    THE    ONLY  RESULT    OF 
HISTORICAL     CRITICISM. 

General  credibility — credibility  in  the  main 
outlines — is  all  that  can  be  demanded  of  historical 
and  biographical  literature.  He  who  exacfts  more 
may  as  well  turn  his  back  upon  all  the  historians, 
even  the  most  painstaking  and  conscientious  of 
them.  Are  we  to  look  for  anything  more  in  an 
inspired  writer  ?  That  question  may  be  answered 
dogmatically  in  the  afiirmative.  It  may  be  as- 
sumed that  the  Biblical  history  must  be  complete 
and  absolutely  inerrant  in  every  slightest  detail. 
But  the  assumption  is  contradicted  by  the  facfts. 
There  are  incomplete  and  variant  accounts,  and 
thus  far  the  differences  have  refused  to  melt 
together  in  the  critical  crucible.  General  credi- 
bility is  all  that  we  can  claim,  and,  whether  it 


OIvD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE.  45 

suits  our  dogmatic  position  or  not,  we  must  be 
content  with  it.  It  certainly  is  a  reversal  of  all 
scientific  and  sensible  criticism,  to  seize  upon  the 
variations  in  the  historical  narrative,  and  by  their 
use  to  discredit  the  entire  record,  and  to  reverse 
its  general  movement  ;  as  unreasonable  and 
absurd  as  it  would  be  to  make  the  battle  of 
Waterloo  a  fidlion,  or  to  convert  Bismarck  and 
Napoleon  into  legendar}^  persons,  because  the 
accounts  of  different  eye-witnesses  do  not  agree. 
Few  things  are  more  important  for  the  critical 
study  of  the  Bible,  than  a  liberal  supply  of  down- 
right common  sense ;  and  when  historical  criti- 
cism parts  with  common  sense,  applying  tests  to 
Scripture  which  would  not  be  applied  to  any 
other  historical  literature,  the  critical  results  are 
discredited  in  advance.  Variations  in  historical 
details  ought  not  to  be  an  obstacle  to  faith.  They 
are  watermarks  of  general  veracity  and  evidence 
of  independent  testimony  ;  they  prove  that  there 
was  no  collusion.  It  may  be  that  other  and 
graver  difficulties  face  us  in  Holy  Scripture,  as  a 
trial  to  our  faith,  to  purge  it,  to  teach  us  the 
important  lesson  that  the  letter   killeth,    while 


46  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

only  the  spirit  maketh  alive.  The  Bible,  after 
all,  is  the  handbook  of  redemption.  It  tells  us 
"  how  to  go  to  heaven,  not  how  the  heavens  go." 
It  has  been  given  us  to  make  us  wise  unto  salva- 
tion, and  to  perfecftly  equip  us  for  every  service 
in  righteousness.  This  has  been  its  great  and 
mighty  mission  in  the  past,  and  the  past  is  suffi- 
cient to  vindicate  its  unique  dignity  and  authority. 
That  mission  let  us  push  with  an  undying  ardor, 
until  its  message  of  hope  has  won  all  hearts,  and 
made  the  face  of  the  round  earth  radiant  with  its 
eternal  joy  ! 


CHAPTER  II. 

Our  Lord's  Use  of  the  Old  Testament. 

"Search  the  Scriptures  ;  for  in  them  ye 
think  ye  have  eternal  life  ;  and  they 
are  they  which  testify  of  me." 

—John  v  :  39. 

We  are  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  an  intelli- 
gent Christianity.  I  have  used  the  phrase  my- 
self;  and,  if  I  live,  I  presume  that  I  shall  use  it 
a  good  many  times  more.  But  the  adje(5live  is 
really  superfluous.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  an 
unintelligent  Christianity.  The  Life  is  the  lyight 
of  men.  The  moment  we  undertake  to  define 
Christianity  in  the  simplest  terms,  that  moment 
we  must  affirm  propositions,  and  projecft  problems, 
which  demand  the  patient  and  strenuous  exercise 
of  the  reason.  And  the  reason  is  not  satisfied, 
unless  the  answers  given  are  stated  in  clear  and 
unmistakable  language.  A  vague  theology  is  the 
sign  of  a  decaying  church,  and  is  to  be  dreaded 
even  more  than  a  pedantic  and  hair-splitting 
scholasticism,     I  have  no  objecflion  to  a  recon- 


48  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

strudled  theology;  only  I  want  it  to  be  theology, 
definite,  Scriptural,  consistent.  We  are  told  that 
every  age  must  do  its  own  thinking.  Agreed  ; 
but  it  should  be  thiyiking,  not  dreaming.  In 
much  of  our  current  literature  I  miss  definiteness. 
There  is  more  and  better  rhetoric  than  in  Jona- 
than Edwards  ;  but  there  is  much  less,  and  much 
poorer,  logic.  There  is  more  fog  than  light.  The 
outlines  are  shadowy,  and  the  substance  vanishes 
when  hands  are  laid  upon  it.  The  fathers  are 
freely  criticised ;  but  empty  balloons  are  sub- 
stituted for  their  solid  strudlures.  I  am  sure 
that  this  cannot  last ;  and  many  a  volume,  now 
praised  as  a  valuable  contribution  to  theological 
thought,  will  drop  out  of  sight  before  its 
author  has  become  invisible.  I  want  clear 
thinking.  The  church  and  the  world  w^ant  it. 
And  the  very  first  evidence  that  we  have  ploughed 
through  the  fog  which  has  settled  down  upon  us, 
will  be  books  in  which  things  are  said  that  the 
reader  can  understand,  and  pulpits  which  will 
preach  the  old  gospel  with  the  old  incisiveness. 
It  is  high  time  that  this  work  were  begun.  For 
myself,  I  must  confess  that  I  should  starve  if  I 


OUR  IvOrd's  usk  of  the  old  testament.    49 

had  only  the  theologians  of  the  last  decade.  I  am 
glad  the  old  are  with  me,  and  that  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  in  my  hands.  And  I  am  afraid  that 
the  people  in  the  pews  are  starving,  because  there 
is  no  clear-cut  theology  in  the  pulpit. 

There  may  be  —  there  are  —  religions  in  which 
the  use  of  reason  is  needless,  and  even  a  hin- 
drance ;  but  Christianity  is  not  one  of  them,  and 
never  has  been.  Its  eternal  life  is  grounded  in 
the  knowledge  of  God  ;  not  in  speculative  know- 
ledge, nor  in  the  sentimental  agnosticism  of  our 
time,  which  is  haughty  with  all  its  airs  of  humil- 
ity, but  in  knowledge  producing  personal  con- 
vidlion,  and  realized  in  personal  conduc5t.  And 
the  whole  history  of  Christianity  shows  that 
wherever  its  message  is  heard  and  heeded,  there  it 
becomes  at  once,  and  continues  to  be,  the  leaven 
of  intellecflual,  as  well  as  of  moral,  ferment.  It 
molds  life,  and  it  creates  a  literature.  When  the 
rational  drops  out,  the  religious  vanishes. 

CHRISTIANITY    AND    THE    BIBLE. 

So  it  comes  to  pass,  that  Christianity  is  prolific 
in  the  produ(5lion  of  books.     The  oldest  extant 


50  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

manuscripts  are  those  of  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 
The  first  book  ever  printed  was  the  Bible.  Christi- 
anity has  sometimes  been  declared  not  to  be  the 
religion  of  a  book.  This  is  a  very  common  state- 
ment, at  present,  and  is  proclaimed  with  an  air 
of  authority,  as  if  it  were  a  new  discovery.  It  is 
one  of  the  most  threadbare  of  platitudes.  Of 
course,  a  book  must  be  thought  out,  before  it  can 
be  written  or  printed.  And  it  cannot  be  thought 
out  in  any  real  sense,  unless  it  has  been  lived 
out.  Life  and  thought  must  precede,  and  with- 
out them  there  will  be  no  call  for  printing-presses 
and  types.  But  the  book  is  needed  to  preserve 
what  has  thus  been  experienced  and  thought  out. 
In  much  of  modern  use,  this  harmless  statement 
is  meant  to  suggest  that  Christianity  would  re- 
main, even  if  the  Bible  could  be  proved  to  be 
false  from  cover  to  cover.  Our  religion  is  de- 
clared to  be  independent  of  it.  It  is  not.  Its 
life  is  bound  up  with  the  reality  of  the  fa6ls  re- 
corded in  the  Testaments. 

The  famous  saying  of  Chillingworth  has  been 
challenged,  when  he  said  :  ' '  The  Bible,  the  Bible, 
is  the  religion  of  Protestants. ' '     We  are  reminded 


OUR  lord's  use  of  the  old  testament.   51 

that  Christianity  is  the  religion  of  Christ ;  that  it 
existed  decades  before  a  line  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment was  written  ;  and  that  not  a  book,  but  a 
person,  claims  our  confidence  and  allegiance. 
Chillingworth  would  have  assented  to  all  that. 
But  he  would  have  added  ' '  Christ  was  a  histori- 
cal person;  His  birth,  His  teachings,  His  miracles, 
His  death,  Hisresurre(5lion,  were  historical  events; 
and  historical  events  can  be  known  by  us,  only 
as  we  know  Alexander,  Caesar,  and  Napoleon." 
There  can  be  no  Christ  in  history,  if  there  was 
no  Christ  of  history  ;  and  the  latter  can  be  known 
only  by  the  use  of  the  gospels  and  the  epistles. 
This  rigidly  historical  pic5lure  of  Christ  is  the 
lungs  and  the  heart  of  Christianity.  No  ideali- 
zation can  take  its  place.  The  church  wants, 
and  must  have,  the  Christ  into  whose  pierced 
side  Thomas  was  summoned  to  thrust  his  hand. 
And  the  certainty  of  historical  events  can  be  pre- 
serv^ed,  and  the  knowledge  of  them  can  be  com- 
municated, only  by  written  records.  Tradition 
cannot  be  relied  upon  ;  the  pen  must  fix  what  the 
eye  has  seen,  and  what  the  ear  has  heard.  Thus 
the  Book  follows  as  a  matter  of  absolute  necessity, 


52  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

if  we  are  not  to  be  the  vi(5lims  of  hopeless  uncer- 
tainty. This  is  the  office  which  the  Scriptures 
perform  for  us,  and  which  they  have  always  per- 
formed. 

Christ's  challenge  to  the  Pharisees. 
In  the  passage  at  the  head  of  this  chapter,  the 
Revised  Version  substitutes  for  the  imperative 
form  of  the  verb  "  search,"  the  present  tense  of 
the  indicative  "ye  search,"  placing  the  alterna- 
tive reading  in  the  margin.  It  is  impossible  to 
pronounce  definitely  upon  this  matter,  and  noth- 
ing of  consequence  is  involved  in  it.  The  address 
of  our  lyord,  in  vindication  of  Himself  and  of  His 
claims,  culminates  in  the  paragraph  introduced  by 
this  sentence.  He  had  healed  a  helpless  para- 
lytic, a  cripple  of  thirty-eight  years'  standing,  by 
a  word.  It  was  the  Sabbath  ;  and  as  the  man 
walked  home,  carrying  the  bed  on  which  he  had 
been  lying,  he  was  met  by  indignant  remon- 
strances. He  could  only  answer  that  his  unknown 
healer  had  commanded  him  to  do  what  he  was 
doing.  He  went  his  way ;  but  his  very  next 
a<5l  was  to  repair  to  the  temple,  doubtless  to  give 
God  thanks  for  his  wonderful  recovery,  and  per- 


OUR  lord's  use  of  the:  old  testament.    53 

haps  also  in  the  hope  of  meeting  his  deliverer.  In 
this  he  was  not  disappointed,  and  so  the  Jews 
came  to  know  that  Jesus  had  made  him  whole. 
This  aroused  their  indignation,  and  precipitated 
a  bitter  assault.  The  Jews  sought  to  slay  Jesus  ; 
and  in  His  defense  Christ  exasperated  them  still 
more,  because  He  claimed  equality  with  God. 
He  appealed  to  the  miracle  which  He  had 
wrought.  He  appealed  to  John,  who  had  borne 
witness  to  Him.  And  finally.  He  appealed  to 
the  Scriptures,  which  His  critics  and  enemies 
held  in  the  highest  reverence.  He  declared  that 
if  they  believed  the  writings  of  Moses,  they 
would  believe  in  Him.  Moses  wrote  of  Him,  and 
the  Scriptures  testified  of  Him.  They  agreed 
that  the  Scriptures  declared  the  way  of  salvation, 
and  that  in  consequence  they  were  entitled  to 
reverent  and  attentive  examination.  To  that 
court  Jesus  made  His  final  appeal,  recognizing 
that  even  His  claims  must  be  reviewed  in  the 
light  of  their  authority.  He  never  ventured  to 
set  them  aside,  but  declared  that  He  had  come  to 
fulfill  them.  There  are  three  things  in  our  Lord's 
challenge  which  command  attention. 


54  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

THE    SCRIPTURES    OF    CHRIST    OUR    BIBLE. 

The  first  is,  that  there  was  a  collecSlion  of  writ- 
ings, which  passed  under  the  name  of  ' '  Scrip- 
tures," which  were  well-known,  whose  supreme 
authority  He  recognized  and  affirmed.  It  will 
always  be  a  matter  of  great  importance  to 
Christians,  to  know  what  this  colledlion  was, 
upon  which  Christ  set  the  stamp  of  His  approval, 
and  to  whose  authority  He  bowed.  The  question 
is  one  which  admits  of  a  definite  answer,  placed 
beyond  all  possibility  of  challenge.  The  collec- 
tion included  all  that  appears  in  our  Old  Testa- 
ment, and  in  the  very  form  in  which  it  has  come 
down  to  us.  Twenty-one  hundred  years  ago,  the 
Canon  of  the  Old  Testament  was  just  what  it  is 
now,  as  appears  plainly  from  the  Greek  transla- 
tion, completed  at  that  time.  So  far  as  there  has 
been,  and  is,  any  debate,  it  relates  to  the  part 
which  Ezra  and  his  successors  played  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  colle(ftion,  and  how  much  farther  back 
we  may  reasonably  assume  that  such  a  coUecftion 
existed.  Kzra  and  his  associates  were  only  the 
latest  and  final  editors,  bringing  the  separate  and 
scattered  rolls  together    in  critically  authorized 


OUR  i^ord's  use  of  the  old  testament.   55 

editions.     No  one  pretends  that  thej^  wrote  the 
books,  nearly  twenty -five  hundred  years  ago. 

Here,  then,  is  the  one  absolutely  fixed  point  in 
the  bewildering  debate  —  that  Christ  read  the 
same  Old  Testament  which  lies  in  our  hands. 
The  Pentateuch,  the  historical  and  prophetical 
books,  the  psalms,  and  other  poetic  pamphlets, 
existed  in  their  present  form  when  He  lived.  He 
had  read  them,  and  had  heard  them  read  ;  and 
He  had  mastered  them  as  none  had  done  until 
then,  and  as  none  have  done  since  then.  No  one 
called  their  sacred  authority  in  question.  The 
nation  recognized  them  as  the  Magna  Charta  of 
its  liberty,  the  Divine  constitution  of  the  Theo- 
cracy, founded  by  Moses  as  the  prophet  of  God. 
And  Christ  accepted  this  estimate  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. For  Him,  too,  these  Scriptures  could 
not  be  broken,  and  by  their  use  He  met  and 
silenced  His  opponents.  The  Pharisees  and  the 
Devil  alike,  He  smote  with  the  sword  of  the  Word 
of  God.  ''It  is  written,'"  put  them  all  to  flight, 
and  left  Him  master  of  the  field. 

Now,  I  do  not  wish  to  press  this  endorsement 
unduly.     I  am  prepared  to  grant  that  it  does  not 


56  OI.D   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRK. 

necessarily  commit  us  to  a  literal  interpretation 
of  the  Book  of  Jonah,  nor  to  the  allegorical  view 
of  the  Song  of  Songs.  There  are  a  host  of  crit- 
ical questions,  connec5led  with  the  composition  and 
the  transmission  of  the  Old  Testament  writings, 
upon  which  Christ  did  not  pass  judgment ;  simply 
because  they  were  not  agitated  in  His  day,  and 
we  have  no  reason  to  suppose  that  they  were 
present  to  His  mind.  We  must  be  content  with 
Vv^hat  He  did  say,  and  not  twist  His  words  to 
mean  more.  He  speaks,  for  instance,  of  the 
Psalter  as  David's  ;  and  yet  He  must  have  known 
that  many  psalms  in  the  coUecflion  were  declared 
to  have  been  written  by  other  men  ;  for  the 
inscriptions  are  certainly  as  old  as  the  Canon  of 
His  t'me.  The  Psalter  was  the  hymn-book  of 
the  Old  Testament  church,  known  as  David's, 
because  he  gave  the  main  impulse  to  its  creation; 
just  as  we  speak  of  the  hymnals  of  Watts,,  and 
of  Wesley,  though  these  contain  the  hymns 
written  by  other  men.  He  opeaks  of  the  Penta- 
teuch as  the  work  of  Moses,  Mosaic  in  inception, 
substance,  and  general  scope,  Mosaic  in  author- 
ity, though  this  does  not  involve  the  claim  that 


OUR  lord's  use  of  thk  old  testament.    57 

Moses  himself  wrote  the  whole  of  it.  I  am  not 
disposed  to  invoke  the  authority  of  Christ  upon 
problems  of  literary  and  historical  criticism.  He 
never  assumed  the  role  of  a  critic.  He  was  too 
busy  for  that.  He  had  more  important  work  to 
do.  He  came  to  give  His  life  a  ransom  for  many. 
Would  that  we  might  follow  in  His  steps,  con- 
sumed w4th  the  holy  passion  for  souls  !  The 
legitimacy  of  the  most  searching  criticism  may, 
and  must,  be  conceded  ;  but  it  is  in  point  to  call 
attention  to  its  subordinate  importance,  and  to 
the  fa<5l  that  the  task  is  one  of  great  difficulty; 
and  it  would  be  easy  to  mention  the  names  of 
many  men  who,  in  twenty  years,  have  completely 
reversed  their  former  judgments,  and  have  at  last 
confessed  their  ignorance. 

Under  these  circumstances,  it  is  well  to  remem- 
ber that  there  is  one  fixed  point — Jesus  Christ 
accepted  the  Old  Testament  as  we  have  it  ;  He 
accepted  the  whole  of  it,  and  nothing  beside. 
This,  for  the  Christian,  will  be  decisive.  The 
authority  of  Christ  must  be  broken  down,  before 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament  can  be 
reduced   to   any   lower  rank  than    authoritative 


58  OI.D   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

records  and  exponents  of  a  Divine  and  historical 
revelation.  And  it  is  well  to  note,  that  this  word 
''Scripture''  or  ''Scriptures''  is  applied  to  the 
colJecSlion  as  a  whole.  It  is  in  the  plural,  because 
the  pamphlets  are  many;  so  that  the  conception 
of  them  as  a  "  library  "  is  by  no  means  a  modern 
discover5^  This  is  one  of  the  worn-out  plati- 
tudes, by  the  way,  which  the  new  critics  are  fond 
of  trotting  out  as  something  unheard  of  before. 
But  the  word  is  also  in  the  singular,  because 
the  thirty-nine  pamphlets  are  also  thirty-nine 
chapters  in  a  single  book.  This,  the  critics  have 
not  considered  as  they  should.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment Scriptures  are  ' '  Scriptjire ' '  in  the  totality 
of  their  contents,  in  the  consistency  and  balanc- 
ing of  all  their  parts.  The  authority  is  in  the 
living  unity  of  narrative,  and  precept,  and  doc- 
trine, and  prophecy. 

SALVATION,    THE    BURDEN    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

A  second  important  thing  in  our  Lord's  chal- 
lenge demands  careful  attention.  It  is  this,  that 
the  value  of  the  Old  Testament  is  in  its  revelation 
of  the  Way  of  Salvation.     Everything  else  is  sub- 


OUR  lord's  usk  of  the  old  testament.    59 

ordinate.  The  Scriptures  disclose  the  nature,  the 
necessity,  the  source,  the  conditions,  the  means, 
the  present  and  future  fruits,  of  eternal  life. 
This  is  the  study  of  them  which  our  Lord  com- 
manded, and  commended.  I  am  not  to  go  to 
them  for  my  chronology,  nor  for  my  science,  nor 
even  for  my  history,  but  to  be  made  wise  unto 
salvation.  That  is  the  path  upon  which  their 
light  was  made  and  meant  to  shine.  And  upon 
that  path  no  other  light  does  shine.  The  fearless 
application  of  this  simple  principle  cannot  fail  to 
bring  great  relief.  It  will  serve  to  keep  us  un- 
moved in  the  fiercest  shock  of  the  critical  battle. 
For  the  warnings  remain,  the  precepts  remain, 
the  promises  remain  ;  no  matter  by  whom,  or  at 
what  time,  these  were  first  believed,  or  uttered, 
or  recorded.  There  is  heaven  in  them,  and 
heaven  beyond  them  ;  and  thereby  they  carry  in 
and  with  them  the  sure  evidence  of  their  heavenly 
origin. 

I  may  not  know  who  fashioned  this  wondrous 
harp,  by  whom  its  strings  were  arranged,  fast- 
ened, and  tuned  ;  I  may  not  see  the  fingers  which 
sweep  over  the  chords  ;    but   I   know   that  the 


6o  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

music  quiets  my  fears,  and  hushes  my  sorrows, 
and  inspires  me  with  hope.  "  He  that  is  bo7m  of 
God,  hath  the  witness  in  himself, ' '  says  John.  And 
the  same  is  true  of  those  who  read  the  Scriptures, 
that  they  may  secure  eternal  life.  They  will 
have  the  witness  in  themselves,  that  these  things 
are  true.  Let  me  add  that  our  Lord's  rule  is  a 
good  one,  not  for  general  readers  only,  but  also 
for  ministers  and  experts.  The  Scriptures  are 
only  then  studied  aright,  they  are  only  then 
preached  aright,  when  all  critical  processes,  and 
all  public  expositions,  are  made  to  converge  upon 
the  clear  exhibition  of  w^hat  they  have  to 
sa}^  about  that  salvation  which  is  eternal  life. 
'  *  We  have  this  treasure  in  earthen  vessels, ' '  said 
Paul.  He  referred  to  his  preaching.  But  it  is 
as  true  of  the  written  w^ord.  The  treasure  of 
God  is  in  an  earthen  vessel.  That  should  make 
us  careful  of  the  vessel,  for  when  that  is  shat- 
tered, the  treasure  may  be  lost  to  us.  There 
may  be  what  we  deem  flaws  in  it ;  still,  to  pick  at 
these  flaws  until  we  pundlure  the  vessel,  is  a  very 
questionable  procedure.  But  we  shall  also  be 
wise  enough   to  magnify  the  treasure,  and  con- 


OUR  lord's  use  of  the  old  testament.   6 1 

centrate  our  attention  upon  it.  For  the  posses- 
sion of  the  treasure  is  the  main  thing  ;  for  one, 
and  for  all. 

CHRIST,  THE    GOAL    OF    SCRIPTURE. 

The  third  thing  in  our  Lord's  challenge  is  the 
most  important  of  all.  It  is  this,  that  as  the 
value  of  the  Old  Testament  is  in  its  revelation  of 
the  Way  of  Salvation,  so  the  Way  of  Salvation  is 
summed  up  in  Jesus  Christ.  How  true  this  is, 
we  needonl}^  to  read  the  book  of  Isaiah,  in  which 
the  Old  Testament  teaching  of  eternal  life  reaches 
its  clearest  and  completest  statement.  Sal- 
vation there  means  a  personal  Savior.  The 
treasure  is  in  the  possession  of  the  Messiah,  the 
Suffering  Servant  of  God.  There  are  the  clear- 
est intimations  of  the  Incarnation,  and  of  the 
Atonement,  in  this  great  book,  which  may  be 
said  to  be  the  crown  of  the  older  Scriptures. 
And  what  this  book  contains,  can  be  traced  with- 
out difficulty,  in  psalm,  and  in  sacrifice,  and  in 
foreshado wings  from  the  very  beginning. 

The  New  Testament  presumes  the  Old.     And 
the  Old  Testament,  without  the  New,  is  a  broken 


62  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

shaft,  a  book  cut  in  two.  The  Old  Testament  is 
the  dawn,  the  morning  twilight.  In  the  gospels 
and  the  epistles,  the  sun  rises  above  the  horizon, 
and  hangs  poised  in  the  zenith.  Christ  is  the 
heart  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  He  is  the  heart  of 
the  New.  These  books,  one  and  all,  are  but  so 
many  massive  pillars  of  granite,  and  marble,  and 
onyx,  and  gold,  and  silver,  and  burnished  brass, 
forming  a  magnificent  colonnade,  converging 
upon  a  Throne,  in  form  of  a  Cross,  upon  which 
is  seated  the  Incarnate  Son  of  God,  whose  scepter 
of  grace  welcomes  the  penitent  suppliant.  Let 
us  not  linger  in  the  porch.  Let  us  advance 
with  swift  and  eager  steps  to  the  inmost 
shrine  of  salvation.  That  is  the  first  thing 
to  do.  And  having  done  that,  we  may  examine 
each  column  as  closely  as  we  choose  and  can, 
never  forgetting  that  each  is  placed  where  it  is, 
that  men  may  find  their  way  to  the  world's  only 
and  almighty  Savior.  The  Scriptures  are  the 
world's  guide-book  to  Jesus  Christ  ;  and  through 
Him,  to  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  to  the  adoption 
of  children,  to  sandlification,  and  to  the  inherit- 
ance of  eternal  glory  ! 


CHAPTER   III. 
Christ  and  the  Old  Testament. 

"And  he  said  unto  them,  These  are 
the  words  which  I  spake  unto  you, 
while  I  was  yet  with  you,  that  all 
things  must  be  fulfilled,  which  were 
written  in  the  law  of  Moses,  and  in 
the  prophets,  and  in  the  psalms,  con- 
cerning me." — lyUKE  xxiv  :  44. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  conduct  a  controversial 
argument.  Nor  do  I  propose  to  enter  upon  a 
discussion  of  purely  literary  questions,  which 
involve  the  most  delicate  and  difficult  processes, 
for  which  my  readers  have  neither  time  nor  taste, 
and  to  which  no  final  and  universally  accepted 
answer  has  as  yet  been  given.  In  fact,  my  judg- 
ment is,  that  many  of  these  questions  never  will 
be  answered,  unless  the  sands  of  the  Nile  and  of 
the  Euphrates  shall  yield,  at  the  touch  of  the 
spade,  the  buried  witnesses  of  the  past.  This 
they  have  been  doing,  and  most  amazing  sur- 
prises may  be  in  store  for  us. 


64  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER    FIRE. 

THE    ILIAD    AND     THE    OLD    TESTAMENT. 

Man}^  of  us  are  familiar  with  the  Homeric  prob- 
lem. We  were  told,  in  our  college  days,  that 
there  never  was  a  Homer  :  and  that  the  Iliad  was 
not  from  the  pen  of  any  single  poet,  known  or 
unknown  ;  that  it  was  composite  in  structure, 
had  been  built  up  by  slow  accretions,  and  was 
legendary  throughout.  The  excavations  of  Schlie- 
mann  have  reversed  all  that.  The  literary  critics 
were  blind.  The  site  of  Troy  has  been  discovered, 
and  the  existence  of  Homer  is  conceded. 

When  Dr.  J.  P.  Thompson  visited  Berlin  in 
his  early  manhood,  he  met  the  famous  lyCpsius  in 
the  library  of  the  Royal  University,  and  when  the 
young  man  told  the  scholar  that  he  hoped  at  some 
future  time  to  write  a  little  book  on  Moses,  the 
German  professor  exploded  :  ' '  But,  inein  Gott, 
there  7iever  was  a  Moses  !  ' '  That  was  the  fashion 
fifty  years  ago.  It  was  assumed  that  there  was 
no  literary  activity,  and  no  pra(5lise  of  writing, 
fifteen  hundred  3^ears  before  Christ.  That  early 
age  was  supposed  to  have  been  in  possession  only 
of  knowledge  conveyed  by  oral  tradition,  which 
is  confessedly  insecure  and  unreliable.     But  now, 


CHRIST    AND    THE    OLD    TESTAMENT.  65 

the  excavations  in  Assyria,  and  the  discovery  of 
the  Tell-Amarna  tablets,  dug  up  from  the  valley 
of  the  Nile,  prove  beyond  question,  that  a  hun- 
dred years  before  Abraham,  and  two  thousand 
years  before  Christ,  there  were  royal  libraries  in 
Egypt,  and  Babjdonia,  and  Palestine,  and  that 
an  active  correspondence  was  carried  on  between 
these  widely  separated  regions.  Moses  has  come 
back  to  stay.  Abraham  cannot  be  a  myth.  They 
lived  in  an  age  of  written  documents. 

THE    CRITICISM    OF    THE     NEW    TESTAMENT. 

Let  me  briefly  touch  upon  another  matter,  to 
show  how  uncertain  are  the  methods  and  the  re- 
sults of  Biblical  criticism.  It  is  said  that  the  Plve 
Books  of  Moses  disclose  traces  of  composite  author- 
ship. Very  likely  ;  but  that  goes  only  a  very  little 
way  towards  determining  the  number,  the  date, 
and  the  authorship,  of  the  documents.  Moses 
himself  may  have  combined  the  more  important 
of  them.  In  facfl,  this  was  Astruc's  theory,  who 
in  1753  led  the  way  in  Pentateuchal  analysis.  He 
found  two  documents  in  Genesis,  but  claimed  that 
Moses  gave  them  their  present  shape.     The  first 


66  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

three  gospels  present  a  similar  problem.  Every 
one  of  them  is  anonymous.  Every  one  of  them 
is  composite.  They  disclose  a  most  remarkable 
agreement,  and  no  less  remarkable  differences. 
Not  one  of  them  is  a  recension  of  the  other  two, 
and  not  one  of  them  embodies  throughout  the 
personal  knowledge  of  the  writer.  The  latter 
claim  can  be  affirmed  only  of  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
which  bears  a  very  similar  relation  to  the  preced- 
ing three,  to  that  which  Deuteronomy  sustains  to 
the  preceding  parts  of  the  Pentateuch. 

A  single  sentence  from  Papias,  preserved  by 
Eusebius,  the  historian,  has  perplexed  students 
for  many  years.  He  says  that  Mark  is  supposed 
to  have  written  down  what  he  heard  Peter  say 
about  Christ.  Is  our  present  Mark  the  compila- 
tion of  these  notes,  or  is  it  a  later  w^ork,  from 
another  hand,  based  upon  these  notes  ?  The 
question  cannot  be  answered.  Papias  also  says 
that  Matthew  wrote  a  gospel  in  Hebrew^  That 
is  still  more  puzzling.  Is  our  present  Matthew  a 
Greek  translation  of  an  original  and  lost  Hebrew 
gospel,  or  is  it  a  new  version  by  Matthew,  or  is  it 
from   another    hand,    based    upon    the   original 


CHRIST   AND    THK    OLD    TPCSTAMKNT.  67 

Hebrew  gospel  of  Matthew,  and  incorporating 
material  from  other  sources  ?  The  question  can- 
not be  answ^ered.  Traces  of  three  documentary 
sources  have  been  found  in  Matthew  and  Mark  ; 
but  the  attempts  to  reproduce  them  have  thus  far 
utterly  failed.  The  third  gospel  is  professedly 
composite.  The  writer  acknowledges  his  indebt- 
edness in  the  preface  ;  and  there  are  traces  of  two 
documents  in  the  Book  of  A6ls,  one  of  which  is 
a  compilation,  while  the  second  is  a  personal 
narrative.  But  this  is  true  of  all  historical  liter- 
ature. Personal  reminiscences  are  a  ver}^  small 
part  of  it.  It  sifts  and  combines  the  stories  of 
eye-witnesses,  and  makes  free  use  of  earlier  writ- 
ten documents  ;  and  the  more  severe  and  search- 
ing the  comparison  and  sifting,  the  more  reliable 
is  the  result. 

The  gospels,  then,  are  composite  literature  ; 
they  could  not  be  anything  else  ;  but  their  his- 
torical trustworthiness  is  beyond  successful  im- 
peachment. And  if  the  literary  questions  raised 
by  the  evangelistic  narratives  cannot  be  definitely 
answered,  it  is  plain  that  dogmatism  in  regard  to 
the  Old  Testament  is  out  of  place.     Dr.  Philip 


68  OLD    TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

Schaff  was  one  of  our  most  learned  and  catholic 
American  scholars,  perfedlly  at  home  in  German 
literature  ;  and  his  ripe  judgment  may  be  com- 
mended to  all  who  undertake  to  thread  the  laby- 
rinth of  modern  criticism ,  when  he  says  :  ' '  The 
cause  of  Biblical  criticism  has  been  much  injured 
in  the  eyes  of  devout  Christians  by  the  hasty  and 
oracular  utterances  of  unproved  hypotheses. ' '  To 
criticism,  free  and  fearless,  I  do  not  obje(5l.  It 
cannot  be  checked,  and  it  ought  not  to  be  checked. 
But  I  do  protest,  in  the  name  of  scholarship, 
against  the  announcement  of  doubtful  and  debat- 
able propositions,  as  fixed  and  authoritative 
criteria  in  dealing  with  the  Bible.  The  intoler- 
ance of  Ewald  and  Graf  is  quite  as  offensive  and 
unbearable,  as  the  tyranny  of  Hildebrand  and 
Boniface. 

HIGHER    AND     LOWER    CRITICISM. 

Biblical  criticism  falls  into  two  general  depart- 
ments. The  first,  which  has  come  to  be  known 
as  lower  criticism,  deals  with  the  text,  and  at- 
tempts, by  comparison  of  manuscripts  and  ver- 
sions, to   reproduce,    as   nearly   as   possible,   the 


CHRIST   AND    THK    OLD    TESTAMENT.  69 

original  autographs.  The  second,  which  has 
come  to  be  known  as  higher  criticism,  deals  with 
the  authenticity  and  the  integrity  of  the  books, 
and  endeavors  to  determine  when  and  by  whom 
they  were  written,  and  whether  they  are  inde- 
pendent treatises  or  drawn  from  older  sources, 
traditional  or  documentary^  These  questions,  it 
is  clear,  are  more  difficult  and  important  than  the 
settlement  of  the  text.  They  are  not  all  of  equal 
importance.  An  anonymous  document  may  be 
authentic,  unmutilated,  and  of  the  highest  trust- 
worthiness. A  book  may  be  the  producft  of  many 
writers,  and  reveal  unmistakable  traces  of  in- 
debtedness to  earlier  authorities,  mentioned  and 
unmentioned,  without  detriment  to  its  authority. 
In  fa(5l,  such  composite  strudlure  may  increase  its 
credibility.  It  is  more  important  to  know  whether 
the  writer  had  access  to  trustworthy  sources  of 
information,  whether  he  used  such  sources  with 
impartiality,  or  whether  he  was  biased,  whether 
the  wTiting  in  our  hands  is  a  forgery,  or  a  mixture 
of  philosophy  and  fa<ft,  or  a  straightforward  nar- 
rative conveying  its  own  lessons,  and  whether  the 
book  has  come  down  to  us  in  mutilated  or  un- 


7o  OI.D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

mutilated  form.  These  questions  cannot  be  en- 
tered upon  until  the  text  has  been  settled.  Lower 
criticism  must  do  its  work,  before  higher  criti- 
cism is  equipped  for  its  task. 

It  is  unfortunate  that  the  words  ' '  lower  ' '  and 
"higher"  have  crept  into  use.  Many  regard 
them  as  invidious,  and  use  them  under  protest. 
They  are  not  properly  descriptive.  It  were  bet- 
ter if  the  first  department  were  known  as  ' '  text- 
ual "  criticism,  which  would  indicate  the  exadl 
nature  of  the  task  set  before  it.  And  the  second 
department  should  be  divided  into  literary  and 
historical  criticism  ;  literary  criticism  dealing 
with  the  analysis  of  the  books,  and  with  the  in- 
ternal evidences  indicating  their  stru(5lure,  au- 
thorship, and  time  of  appearance  ;  historical  criti- 
cism dealing  with  the  external  evidences,  supplied 
by  various  quotations  and  references  in  contem- 
porary literature,  inscriptions,  monuments,^  and 
the  like. 

THE    AUTHORITY    OF    TRADITION. 

It  is  to  be  regretted  that  so  many  of  the  Bibli- 
cal critics  are  wanting  in  exacft  and  comprehen- 


CHRIST    AND   THI5   OLD   TESTAMENT.  7 1 

sive  historical  knowledge.  They  look  with  some 
disdain  upon  the  students  of  archaeology,  and 
they  minimize  the  established  results.  But  prob- 
lems of  authenticity,  and  of  integrity,  cannot  be 
determined  by  literary  analysis  alone.  The 
problem  is  pre-eminently  a  historical  one,  and 
historical  evidence  alone  can  solve  it.  Literary 
criticism  cannot  possibly  determine  by  wdiom  a 
book  was  w^ritten,  and  if  it  ventures  to  cast  doubt 
upon  clear  and  unequivocal  statements  in  the 
book  itself,  denying  them  altogether  or  reducing 
them  to  a  minimum,  it  simply  buries  us  in  hope- 
less bewilderment.  Thus  it  is  said  that  the  Pen- 
tateuch does  not  claim  to  have  been  written  by 
Moses.  But  the  critics  also  grant  that  some 
things  were  written  by  him.  And  the  frequent 
recurrence  of  the  phrase,  ' '  The  Lord  said  unto 
Moses,"  which  runs  like  an  unbroken  thread 
through  the  Levitical  legislation,  could  have 
been  warranted  only  because  the  tradition  as- 
sumed authoritative  form  in  his  day.  To  dis- 
credit that  testimony  is  to  make  the  problem 
hopeless  of  solution.  When  it  is  denied  that  the 
last  twenty-seven  chapters  of  Isaiah  are  from  the 


72  OLD   TESTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRK. 

pen  of  that  prophet,  the  fa(5l  that  the  book  of 
Isaiah  has  always  contained  them  must  be 
allowed  to  have  some  weight,  and  the  most  posi- 
tive evidence  must  be  produced,  that  the  natural 
and  inevitable  inference  of  a  single  authorship  is 
not  only  unwarranted,  but  contradi<5led  by  the 
plainest  facfts.  It  is  a  suspicious  fa(5l  that  they 
who  deny  the  Mosaic  authorship  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, and  who  declare  Isaiah  to  be  composite, 
can  do  no  better  than  to  assign  them  to  some 
great  unknown,  and  cannot  even  fix  the  time 
when  he  lived.  The  result  only  gives  us  an  in- 
definite number  of  Elohists  and  Jahvists  and 
Deuteronomists  and  Reda6lors,  shadowy  and  un- 
substantial figures,  whose  number  even  cannot 
be  determined.  The  once  famous  Fragmentary 
Hypothesis  broke  down  under  the  weight  of  its 
arbitrary  assumptions,  and  it  begins  to  look  as  if 
the  present  theory  would  be  soon  involved  in  the 
same  fate.  The  evident  unity  of  the  books  con- 
tradicts the  theory  of  mechanical  composite 
strudlure.  The  scissoring  and  patching  become 
bewildering.  At  all  events,  the  result  leaves  us 
in  a  hopeless  muddle,  and  when  that  is  the  only 


CHRIST  AND   THE   OIvD   TESTAMENT.  73 

thing  settled,  the  proposed   solution  is   self-con- 
demned. 

It  has  become  the  fashion  to  cast  discredit  upon 
tradition.  But  a  traditional  solution  is  better 
than  one  which  leaves  everything  hanging  in  the 
air,  which  begins  with  guesses  and  ends  in  fog. 
The  criticism  of  tradition  is  legitimate.  It  may 
be  exaggerated,  and  it  may  be  false,  but  w^hether 
tradition  is  exaggerated  or  false,  must  be  his- 
torically determined.  Modern  criticism  simply 
assumes  that  tradition  is  not  a  competent  witness. 
Its  voice  is  silenced.  That  is  arbitrary,  unscien- 
tific, and  unhistorical.  Traditions  are  rarely,  if 
ever,  wholly  fidlitious  and  legendary.  There  is 
in  them  a  kernel  of  historical  truth,  and  the  more 
widely  traditions  have  gained  currency,  the  longer 
they  have  held  their  ground,  challenged  or 
unchallenged,  the  more  are  they  entitled  to 
respe<flful  treatment.  Thus  it  is  only  by  tra- 
dition that  we  assign  the  first  three  Gospels  to 
the  writers  with  whose  names  they  are  associated. 
Judged  simply  by  their  contents,  they  are  anony- 
mous. The  traditional  account  holds  its  ground 
for  the  simple  reason  that  it  cannot  be  discredited 


74  OI^D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

by  equally  good  external  evidence.  So  the  Paul- 
ine Kpistles  have  the  Pauline  signature  stamped 
upon  and  into  them,  and  to  discredit  their  Paul- 
ine origin  demands  evidence  of  the  most  positive 
and  overwhelming  characfter.  It  is  easy  to  den}^ 
authenticity  and  integrity,  but  the  denial  must  be 
made  good.  The  burden  of  proof  is  upon  him 
who  denies.  He  must  show  that  in  detail,  and  as 
a  whole,  the  traditional  view  is  false.  The  grounds 
upon  which,  for  example,  the  unity  of  IvSaiah  is 
denied,  are  so  shadowy  that  they  cannot  be  said  to 
nullify  the  evidence  that  the  book,  so  far  as  we 
know,  has  never  existed  in  any  other  than  its 
present  form,  and  has  always  been  attributed  to 
Isaiah.  The  Pentateuch  has  always  been  credited 
to  Moses,  and  Mosaic  authority  is  stamped  upon 
every  one  of  its  parts,  while  not  a  particle  of  exter- 
nal evidence  can  be  produced  against  the  universal 
tradition.  The  synagogue  is  not  infallible,  but 
the  synagogue  from  the  first  regarded  Moses  as 
the  great  author  of  the  Pentateuch,  so  that  from 
the  time  of  Ezra  down  this  tradition  is  the  only 
one  invested  with  evidential  autllorit3^  The 
tradition  will  hold  its  ground,  and  ought  to  hold 


CHRIST  AND   THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  75 

its  ground,  until  the  critics  do  something  more 
than  substitute  guesses  for  fa6ls. 

THE     HISTORICAL    TEMPER. 

We  are  assured  that  no  harm  can  result  from 
the  collapse  of  traditional  views.  Canon  Driver 
solemnly  declares  that  critical  results  do  not 
destroy  either  the  authority  or  the  inspiration  of 
the  Old  Testament.  That  declaration  must  be 
accepted  as  sincere.  Wholesale  charges  of  irrever- 
ence and  of  infidelity  do  more  harm  than  good. 
They  are  not  true.  No  one  can  read  what  many 
of  the  higher  critics  have  written,  without  being 
impressed  with  their  industry,  learning,  sincerity, 
and  reverence.  But  it  must  also  be  said  that  in 
many  cases  the  judicial  temper  is  wanting.  They 
deal  in  possibilities  and  probabilities.  They  ap- 
proach the  problems  with  a  prejudice  against  the 
traditional  view,  and  with  a  depreciatory  estimate 
of  historical  evidence.  They  assume  that  unless 
the  traditional  view  can  be  proved,  it  must  be 
regarded  as  false,  or  as  at  best  an  unsupported 
guess.  Silence  at  a  certain  point  is  construed  as 
evidence  to  the  contrary.     Thus,  in  many  cases 


76  OLD   TKSTAMKNT   UNDKR    FIRK. 

there  is  a  break  in  the  testimony,  at  the  year  70, 
when  Jerusalem  was  destroyed  by  •  Titus  ;  and 
although  at  that  period  the  tradition  is  definite 
and  fixed,  the  absence,  beyond  that  period,  of 
positive  evidence  is  construed  as  implying  ignor- 
ance or  doubt.  But  there  is  no  evidence  confirm- 
ing that  conclusion  ;  such  evidence  as  there  is, 
is  all  in  favor  of  the  traditional  view,  vSo  that  the 
critical  logic  breaks  down  because  it  has  nothing 
whatever  upon  which  it  rests.  The  choice  must 
be  between  a  careful  sifting  of  tradition,  and 
agnosticism.  Professor  Buhl,  of  Leipzig,  shows 
a  most  commendable  temper  of  mind  when  he 
frankly  concedes  that  the  Jews  must  be  regarded 
' '  as  the  authority  on  the  question  of  the  Old 
Testament  canon.  The  people  of  Israel,  to  whom 
the  Old  Testament  revelation  had  been  entrusted, 
and  whose  life  task  it  was  to  preserve  it  uncor- 
rupted,  are,  in  fadl,  the  legitimate  and  competent 
judges  when  it  has  to  be  decided  in  what  writings 
this  revelation  appears  in  purity  and  free  from  all 
foreign  and  modifying  elements.  That  we  are  no 
longer  in  a  position  fully  to  trace  out  the  princi- 
ples which  led  the  scribes  in  their  determination 


I 


CHRIST  ANP   THK   OI.D   TESTAMENT.  77 

• 

regarding  the  Canon,  and  that  those  principles 
which  can  still  be  understood  are  in  many  cases 
extremely  peculiar,  cannot  be  regarded,  as  in  this 
conne(5lion,  of  any  importance.  For  it  is  not  with 
the  views  of  the  scribes  that  we  have  to  do,  but 
only  with  the  favor  shown  to  the  Scriptures  and 
their  circulation  among  the  people,  of  which  the 
decrees  of  the  rabbis  as  to  the  Canon  are  simply  an 
echo.  The  spread  and  recognition  which  the 
books  had  won  in  the  genuinely  Jewish  commun- 
ity is  the  material  which  the  scribes  had  to  work 
up  in  their  own  way  ;  but  how  they  succeeded  in 
this  is  only  of  secondarj^  interest,  while  the  firm 
position  of  the  writings  among  the  members  of 
the  community  affords  the  special  guarantee  that 
they  recognized  in  them  a  true  reflexion  of  their 
spiritual  life,  and  that  these  writings,  therefore, 
must  be  accepted  by  us  as  the  canonical  means  of 
learning  to  know  that  life. ' '  In  the  later  part  of 
the  discussion  Professor  Buhl  declares,  that  the 
frequent  charges  of  serious  corruption  in  the  text 
of  the  Old  Testament  are  absolutely  without  foun- 
dation, and  are  discredited  by  the  high  reverence 
with  which  the  Scriptures  were  treated. 


78  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

It  is  refreshing  to  note  such  a  return  to  the 
historical  temper.  Its  cultivation  must  issue  in 
the  modification  of  many  current  critical  judg- 
ments, and  in  the  withdrawal  of  not  a  few.  For 
while  the  traditional  evidence  needs  to  be  histori- 
cally sifted,  it  cannot  be  ignored,  especially  when 
it  is  remembered  that  all  the  historical  evidence 
there  is,  is  in  favor  of  the  traditional  view.  And 
that  traditional  view,  as  Buhl  states,  was  not 
created  and  imposed  by  the  scribes,  but  was  simply 
recorded  by  them  as  the  sifted  result  of  ancient, 
transmitted,  national  convidlion. 

APPEAL    TO    CHRIST. 

There  is  one  fadl  which  remains  fixed  and  his- 
torically assured  in  the  bewildering  debate,  and 
which  is  of  supreme  and  decisive  importance  to 
the  Christian  believer.  Canon  Driver  is  most 
emphatic  in  the  .statement  that  the  same  canon  of 
historical  criticism  which  ' '  authorizes  the  as- 
sumption of  tradition  in  the  Old  Testament  for- 
bids it  in  the  New,"  and  that  "  the  fadls  of  our 
Lord's  life  on  which  the  fundamental  truths  of 
Christianity  depend  cannot  be  anything  else  than 


I 


CHRIST   AND   THE   OI.D   TESTAMENT.  79 

Strictly  historical."  But  the  New  Testament, 
and  even  the  first  three  Gospels  alone,  will  give 
us  the  present  Old  Testament,  with  our  Lord's 
endorsement  of  it  as  Scripture.  That  wall  be 
enough  for  the  plain  Christian.  He  will  conclude 
that  he  cannot  do  better  than  to  use  his  Old  Test- 
ament, as  Christ  used  it,  and  that  he  need  not 
hesitate  to  do  so. 

CHRIST    AND    THE    OLD    TESTAMENT. 

The  substantial  identity,  I  am  prepared  to  say 
pradlically  absolute  identity,  of  the  present  He- 
brew Old  Testament  wath  the  Old  Testament  as 
Christ  knew  it,  is  one  of  the  clearest  outstanding 
facfts  in  the  critical  controversy.  The  debate,  for 
the  most  part,  concerns  the  period  between  Ezra, 
450  B.  C,  to  Moses,  1491  B.  C,  a  little  over  a 
thousand  years,  whose  contemporaneous  memorials 
have  perished  in  the  ruthless  wars  of  the  captivi- 
ties, and  in  the  destrudlion  of  the  temple  by  the 
Roman  soldiers.  But  it  is  equally  clear  that  long 
before  the  birth  of  Christ,  the  present  books  of  the 
Old  Testament  were  regarded  as  Scripture  and  in- 
spired ;  were  read  regularly  in  the  synagogues  ; 
were  classified  as  "  I^aw,  Prophets,  and  Psalms," 


8o  OI.D   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRE. 

bound  up  in  rolls  and  jealously  guarded,  and 
were  studied  with  a  veneration  bordering  upon 
superstition.  The  evidence  is  ample,  massive,  and 
overwhelming.  Soon  after  the  destrudlion  of 
Jerusalem,  the  learned  Jewish  rabbis  established  a 
colony  and  organized  a  famous  school  at  Jamnia, 
which  continued  in  existence  for  sixty  years  ;  and 
here,  soon  after  the  year  70,  the  present  number 
and  names  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
were  formally  and  officially  promulgated.  The 
list  names  twenty-four  books,  and  includes  every 
book  in  our  present  collection  ;  and  it  includes 
only  these.  The  difference  between  our  of  thirty- 
nine  books  and  the  Hebrew  list,  which  contains 
only  twenty-four,  is  accounted  for  by  the  fa(5l  that 
in  the  Hebrew  list  I.  and  II.  Samuel  appear  as 
one  book,  I.  and  II.  Kings  as  one  book,  I.  and 
II.  Chronicles  as  one  book,  Ezra  and  Nehemiah 
as  one  book  and  the  twelve  minor  prophets  as 
one  book.  The  difference  is  purely  one  of  numeri- 
cal notation  ;  the  actual  contents  are  identical. 

JOSEPHUS. 

Josephus,   writing    sixty   years   after   Christ's 
death,  about  the  year  90,  gives  the  number  and 


CHRIST  AND   THK  OI.D  TESTAMENT.  8 1 

the  classes  of  the  Old  Testament  books,  and 
speaks  of  them  as  long  recognized  and  inspired. 
The  passage  has  often  been  quoted  and  is  found 
in  his  tracfl  against  Apion,  the  eighth  chapter  of 
the  first  book.  The  number  is  spoken  of  as 
twenty-two,  to  make  it  correspond  with  the  num- 
ber of  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  and  this  was  done  by 
combining  Ruth  with  Judges,  and  I^amentations 
with  Jeremiah.  That  the  Old  Testament  of 
Josephus  was  identical  with  our  own,  is  evident 
from  an  examination  of  his  ' '  History  of  the 
Jews, ' '  which  draws  upon  all  these  books  as  au- 
thoritative sources  of  historical  information. 
Even  Jonah  is  embodied  in  the  story.  The  force 
of  the  testimony  of  Josephus  will  appear,  when  it 
is  remembered  that  he  was  born  in  the  year  37, 
only  seven  years  after  the  death  of  Christ,  and 
that  his  life  covers  the  lives  of  the  Apostles  Paul 
and  John. 

The  passage  is  worth  inserting  :  ' '  For  we  have 
not  an  innumerable  multitude  of  books  among  us, 
disagreeing  from  and  contradidling  each  other  (as 
the  Greeks  have),  but  only  twent3^-two  books, 
which  contain  the  records  of  all  past  times,  which 


82  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

are  justly  believed  to  be  divine.  And  of  them 
five  belong  to  Moses,  which  contain  his  laws,  and 
the  traditions  of  the  origin  of  mankind  until  his 
death.  The  interval  of  time  was  little  less  than 
3,000  years.  But  as  to  the  time  from  the  death 
of  Moses  till  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes,  King  of 
Persia,  who  reigned  after  Xerxes,  the  prophets, 
who  were  after  Moses,  wrote  down  what  was 
done  in  their  time  in  thirteen  books.  The 
remaining  four  books  contain  hymns  to  God,  and 
precepts  for  the  condu(5l  of  human  life.  How 
firmly  we  have  given  credit  to  these  books  of  our 
own  nation  is  evident  by  what  we  do  ;  for  during 
so  many  ages  as  have  already  elapsed  no  one 
hath  been  so  bold  as  either  to  add  anything  to 
them  or  take  anything  from  them,  or  to  make 
any  change  in  them  ;  but  it  is  become  natural  to 
all  Jews,  immediately  and  from  their  very  birth 
to  esteem  these  books  to  contain  divine  do6lrlnes, 
and  to  persist  in  them,  and,  if  occasion  be,  will- 
ingly to  die  for  them.  For  it  is  no  new  thing  for 
our  captives,  many  of  them  in  number,  and  fre- 
quently in  time,  to  be  seen  to  endure  racks  and 
death  of  all  kinds  upon  the  theaters,  that  they 


CHRIST   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  83 

may  not  be  obliged  to  say  one  word  against  our 
laws,  or  the  records  that  contain  them  ;  whereas 
there  are  none  at  all  among  the  Greeks  who 
would  undergo  the  least  harm  on  that  account; 
no,  nor  in  the  case  if  all  the  writings  that  are 
among  them  were  to  be  destroyed." 

Josephus  here  speaks  for  himself  and  for  the 
nation.  He  certainly  could  not  be  mistaken  on 
that  point.  He  was  the  most  learned  and  influ- 
ential Jew  of  his  time,  and  he  was  anything  but 
a  stridl  constru(5lionist.  It  may  be  that  the  Bible 
is  a  forgery,  and  it  may  be  that  the  Declaration  of 
American  Independence  is  forgery  ;  but  the  state- 
ment of  Josephus  proves  conclusively,  that  our 
present  Old  Testament  was  regarded  in  his  day 
with  such  veneration,  that  men  were  prepared  to 
die  for  their  faith  in  it,  and  that  for  many  gene- 
rations before  his  time  it  had  not  been  tampered 
with.  The  nation,  according  to  his  testimony, 
as  early  as  his  own  birth  in  the  year  37,  accepted 
the  books  as  we  now  have  them,  regarded  them 
as  inspired,  and  affirmed  the'  integrity  of  the 
text. 


84  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER  FIRE. 

PHILO    AND    THE    SEPTUAGINT. 

We  can  go  back  fifty  years  beyond  Josephus. 
Philo,  a  learned  Jew,  writing  during  our  I^ord's 
life  and  immediately  after,  quotes  from  nearly 
every  one  of  our  present  books,  and  accords  them 
inspired  authority.  He  quotes  from  the  Penta- 
teuch, Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel,  Kings,  Isaiah, 
Jeremiah,  the  minor  prophets,  Psalms,  Proverbs, 
Job,  Ezra  and  Chronicles.  We  can  go  back  200 
years  beyond  Philo.  He  lived  and  taught  at 
Alexandria.  His  philosophy  was  a  mixture  of 
Old  Testament  theology  and  Greek  metaphysics. 
Alexandria  had  long  been  the  home  of  many 
Jews,  who  gathered  there  after  the  dispersion 
occasioned  by  the  first  destrudlion  of  Jerusalem  by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  made  the  city  of  their 
adoption  a  famous  center  of  Jewish  learning  and 
religion.  The  Jewish  colony  had  at  an  early  day 
become  Greek  in  speech,  and  the  general  negledt 
of  Hebrew  had  made  a  Greek  translation  of  the 
Old  Testament  necessary.  This  was  begun  280 
B.  C,  and  finished  about  150  B.  C.  ;  accepted 
and  authorative  at  least  200  years  before  Philo. 
Not  one  of  our  present  books  is  missing  in  the 


CHRIST  AND  THK  OLD  TESTAMENT.  85 

Septuagint,  though  several  others  were  inserted 
and  added,  which  went  under  the  name  of 
Apocrypha,  and  are  accepted  as  canonical  and 
inspired  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  but  are 
rejedled  by  Protestants  and  Jews.  Many  of  us 
can  remember  these  books  as  printed  and  bound 
up  in  our  older  Bibles,  though  occupying  a 
separate  sedlion. 

MEANING    OF    THE    FACTS. 

Consider  what  these  fa(5ls  mean.  Add  280  B. 
C,  when  the  Greek  translation  was  begun,  to 
1897,  ^^^  we  have  2177.  During  that  long  period 
the  Old  Testament  has  been  what  it  is  now.  It 
certainly  is  a  modest  claim  that  these  books  in  the 
Old  Testament  must  have  been  known,  and  in 
general  circulation,  one  or  two  hundred  years 
before  280  B.  C,  which  brings  us  to  the  time  of 
Ezra.  In  fa(5l,  we  learn  from  the  Proverbs  of 
Jesus,  the  son  of  Sirach,  that  in  the  days  of  his 
grandfather,  200  j^ears  before  Christ,  the  division 
of  the  Old  Testament  into  ' '  the  L,aw  of  Moses, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms' '  was  already  known, 
and   in   familiar   use ;    and   the   use   which   the 


86  OI.D  TKSTAMKNT  UNDKR   FIRH. 

author  himself  makes  of  these  books  proves  that 
the  first  and  second  parts  of  this  division  had  pre- 
cisely the  same  contents  which  they  have  now. 
The  verdicfl  of  sober  scholarship  upon  this  point, 
now  under  consideration,  and  in  which  Kuenen, 
Cornill  and  Cheyne  agree,  may  be  stated  in  the 
measured  words  of  Professor  Sanday  :  * '  The 
Canon  of  the  Law  was  pradlically  complete  at  the 
time  of  the  promulgation  of  the  Pentateuch  by 
Kzra  and  Nehemiah,  in  the  year  444  B.  C,  and 
that  of  the  prophets  in  the  course  of  the  third 
century  before  Christ.  As  to  the  closing  of  the 
third  group,  there  is  perhaps  more  room  for  differ- 
ence of  opinion.  A  common  view  is  that  the 
recognition  of  these  books  as  Scriptures  would 
be  no  later  than  100  B.  C.  All  the  books  are 
quoted  as  authoritative  in  recorded  sayings  from 
Hillel  onward."  And  Hillel  died  four  years  be- 
fore the  Christian  era  ;  died  in  the  year  in  which 
our  Lord  was  born.  This  makes  it  incontro- 
vertibly  clear  that  the  Scripture  to  which  Christ 
appealed  is  our  own  Old  Testament.  That  nail 
should  be  clinched.  The  concession  of  Professor 
Sanday  is  all  the  more  impressive,  because  he 


CHRIST  AND   THE  OLD  TESTAMENT.  87 

grants  the  documentary  strudlure  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, the  post-exilian  date  of  its  middle  books, 
locates  Deuteronomy  in  the  age  of  Josiah,  places 
many  of  the  Psalms  in  the  Maccabean  time,  and 
maintains  the  late  dates  of  Ruth  and  Daniel.  But 
he  cannot  resist  the  historical  evidence  that  a 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  the  Old  Testament 
as  we  now  have  it  was  universally  regarded  as 
inspired  Scripture.  And  when  it  is  remembered 
how  jealously  the  Jews,  200  years  before  Christ, 
guarded  their  sacred  writings,  and  what  super- 
stitious reverence  they  paid  them,  what  recondite 
meanings  Philo  found  in  names  and  numbers,  we 
must  be  permitted  to  believe,  and  we  cannot  resist 
the  positive  convidlion,  that  those  early  students 
were  better  equipped  to  pass  judgment  upon 
questions  of  authorship  and  date,  than  are  we. 
Their  emphatic  and  unanimous  verdi(5l  is  at  least 
entitled  to  respect,  even  if  they  were  not  infallible. 
Between  Ezra  and  David  are  only  six  hundred 
years,  and  between  Ezra  and  Moses  are  only  about 
a  thousand  years.  Between  us  and  David  are 
three  thousand  years,  between  us  and  Moses  are 
thirty-four   hundred    years,    and    the  period    is 


88  OlyD  TKSTAMKNT  UNDER  FIRE. 

broken  for  us  by  the  destrudlion  of  Jerusalem 
luider  Titus.  But  in  the  midst  of  that  tumult 
stands  the  Old  Testament,  in  substantially  the 
same  form  in  which  we  now  have  it,  read  in  all 
the  synagogues  then  as  it  is  now,  spoken  of  as 
Scripture,  regarded  as  inspired,  accepted  and 
quoted  by  Christ  as  authoritative. 

UNCONTRADICTED. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  scholar  with  compe- 
tent learning,  however  critical  his  attitude,  would 
undertake  seriously  to  call  this  statement  in  ques- 
tion. Kwald,  Strack,  Stanley,  Buhl,  Delitzsch, 
Briggs,  Robertson  Smith,  Reuss  and  Samuel 
Davidson,  concede  it.  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen 
do  not  challenge  it.  Even  Vernes,  who  claims 
that  no  writing  of  the  Old  Testament  is  of  earlier 
date  than  Ezra,  would  not  deny  it.  It  is  implied 
upon  every  page  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the 
evidence  is  clear,  ample,  and  decisive,  that  from 
the  very  first  the  Christian  Church  accepted  in 
its  entirety  the  Old  Testament  as  it  was  read  and 
honored  in  the  synagogues  and  by  the  nation. 
The  public  life  of  our  I^ord  was  one  strenuous, 


CHRIST  AND   THE   OI.D   TESTAMENT.  89 

unbroken  confli(5l  with  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, 
but  He  accepted  the  same  Scriptures  with  them- 
selves as  a  revelation  from  God.  Paul  broke 
with  the  synagogue  in  its  theology,  but  for  the 
ancient  oracles  he  retained  his  undiminished  and 
unqualified  reverence.  No  criticism  can  shake 
that  outstanding  fa(5l.  The  temple  fell.  The 
holy  city  crumbled  into  dust.  The  priesthood 
came  to  an  end.  Sacrifice  ceased.  One  thing 
was  neither  burned  nor  buried.  The  Old  Testa- 
ment, as  we  have  it,  survived  the  shock  of 
Roman  arms,  and,  with  Christ,  it  maintained  its 
imperial  ascendency,  gaining  a  new  and  universal 
constituency.  For  the  notion,  advanced  by 
some,  that  between  the  first  century  before  Christ 
and  the  first  century  after  Christ  the  Hebrew  text 
was  deliberately  and  seriously  corrupted,  is 
utterly  without  foundation  ;  and  the  clear  testi- 
mony of  Josephus,  who  lived  in  the  latter  cen- 
tury, falls  like  a  trip-hammer  upon  those  who 
hint  it. 

The  only  plausible  qualification  which  can  be 
made,  is  that  in  the  time  of  Christ  there  was  some 
uncertainty  concerning  certain  books  which  be- 


go  OIvD   TKSTAMKNT  UNDKR   FIRE. 

long  to  what  is  called  the  third  Canon  of  Scrip- 
ture. Thus  Robertson  Smith  declares  that  the 
Canon  of  the  I^aw  was  complete  450  B.  C;  the 
Canon  of  the  prophets  168  B.  C,  and  that  in  the 
time  of  Christ,  Psalms,  Proverbs  and  Job  were 
accepted  as  inspired  Scriptures.  That  would 
leave  out  Esther,  Ezra  and  Nehemiah,  Ecclesias- 
tes,  Canticles,  Daniel,  and  Chronicles.  Even 
these,  he  declares,  w^ere  in  existence  and  widely 
read  ;  only  it  is  claimed  that  these  were  not  decis- 
ively regarded  as  Scripture  until  the  end  of  the 
first  century  of  our  era.  And  here  again,  the 
explicit  testimony  of  Josephus  falls  like  a  trip- 
hammer upon  the  theory.  But  even  granting  it, 
it  is  plain  that  the  bulk  of  our  Old  Testament  was 
in  Christ's  hands,  and  regarded  by  Him  as  Scrip- 
ture. In  an  Oxford  Bible  the  entire  Old  Testa- 
ment covers  585  pages,  and  these  disputed  books 
cover  only  eighty-nine  pages  ;  and  their  elimina- 
tion would  not  alter  a  single  feature  in  the  history 
down  to  the  time  of  Ezra.  The  evidence  for  our 
present  Old  Testament,  as  endorsed  by  Jesus 
Christ,  is  simply  amazing,  overwhelming,  unan- 
swerable. 


CHRIST  AND   THEJ   OLD   TESTAMENT.  9 1 

THE    ARGUMENT    DECISIVE. 

That  settles  the  controversy  for  the  believer  in 
Christ.  There  are  a  hundred  questions  which  it 
does  not  answer.  But  it  does  clear  the  ground. 
It  gives  us  firm  footing,  and  makes  the  citadel 
impregnable.  The  spiritual  life  of  Christ  was 
nourished  by  these  Old  Testament  Scriptures. 
To  them  He  appealed  as  the  oracles  of  God,  dis- 
closing to  men  the  way  of  salvation,  and  consti- 
tuting an  impressive  prophecy  of  His  advent  and 
mission.  He  appealed  to  them  for  nothing  else  ; 
but  in  that  region  He  declared  them  to  be  author- 
itative ;  and  among  these  writings  w^ere  the  five 
books  of  Moses,  whatever  their  strucflure,  and  the 
puzzling  book  of  Jonah,  be  it  history  or  parable, 
to  all  of  which  He  referred,  and  from  which  He 
quoted.  That  is  the  one  thing  which  is  perfe(5lly 
clear,  and  that  is  the  one  thing  to  be  emphasized, 
as  it  is  the  only  thing  of  vital  importance. 
Christ  must  be  torn  out  of  the  heart  of  the  world, 
before  the  Old  Testament  can  be  wrenched  from 
its  place.  And  in  emphasizing  what  I  have,  I 
have  turned  the  entire  flank  of  the  critical  host, 
entrenching  myself  in  the  impregnable  citadel, 


92  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

where  the  Babel  of  voices  cannot  disturb  us,  and 
where  its  cannonade  can  have  no  more  effedl  upon 
us  than  the  shooting  of  peas  against  the  sun.  I 
simply  want  to  emphasize  the  fa6l  that  if  men 
will  use  their  Old  Testament  as  Jesus  Christ  used 
His,  which  was  the  same  as  our  own,  to  find  their 
way  to  God  and  heaven,  they  may  go  on  their 
way  rejoicing,  while  the  critics  fight  over  their 
endless  and  profitless  task.  It  is  safe  to  follow 
Him  who  gave  His  life  to  save  us. 

OUR  lord's  use  of  the  old  testament. 

And  how  He  used  them,  how  He  would  have 
us  use  them,  He  has  Himself  told  us,  in  those 
familiar  words  with  which  He  defended  His 
august  claims,  and  challenged  the  Pharisees, 
words  which  cannot  be  considered  too  often  and 
too  seriously:  ''Search  the  Scriptures;  for  in  them 
ye  think  ye  have  eternal  life^  and  they  are  they 
which  testify  of  me. ' '  Here  we  are  told  what  to 
search,  how  to  condu(5l  the  search,  and  what  the 
result  of  a  proper  search  will  be.  The  Scriptures 
which  He  commends  to  us  are  the  Old  Testament 
books  in  our  possession,  by  which  His  own  life 


CHRIST  AND  THK   OLD  TKSTAMKNT.  93 

had  been  nourished  and  made  strong.  The  tem- 
per of  our  search,  in  the  use  of  these  Scriptures, 
is  to  be  the  earnest  endeavor  to  discover  in  them 
the  divine  message  of  eternal  life.  They  were 
given  to  make  us  wise  unto  salvation.  And  in 
discharging  this  peculiar  office,  they  condudl  us 
to  Jesus  Christ,  the  beating  heart  and  vital  bond 
of  both  Testaments. 

REFERENCES. 

To  such  as  desire  to  enter  upon  a  more  careful 
and  extended  study  of  the  problems  debated  by 
modern  Biblical  critics,  the  following  books  are 
commended.  The  list  is  only  a  preliminary  one, 
and  could  easily  be  greatly  enlarged  : 

"  Moses  and  His  Recent  Critics,"  by  Dr.  Chambers. 

"  Moses  and  the  Prophets,"  by  Professor  Green. 

"  The  Pentateuch  :  Its  Origin  and  Strudlure,"  by  Dr.  Bissell. 

"  The  Higher  Criticism  and  the  Monuments,"  by  Professor  Sayce. 

"  The  Mosaic  Origin  of  the  Pentateuchal  Codes,"  by  Professor  Vos. 

"The  Foundations  of  the  Bible,"  by  Canon  Girdlestone. 

"  The  Early  History  of  Israel,"  by  Professor  Robertson. 

"The  Unity  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,"  by  Professor  Green. 

"Supernatural  Revelation,"  by  Professor  Mead. 

"  Romans  Dissedled,"  by  Realsham. 

"  The  I,aw  and  the  Prophets,"  by  Professor  Stanley  I,eathes. 

"  Radical  Criticism,"  by  Professor  Beattie. 

"Theological  Propadeutic,"  by  Professor  Philip  Schaff. 


94  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   EIRE. 

"  Higher  Criticism  of  the  Pentateuch,"  by  Professor  Green. 

"Genesis  and  the  Semitic  Tradition,"  by  Professor  Davis. 

"Inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament."  by  Principal  Cave. 

"Book  by  Book,"  by  Robertson,  Davidson,  I^eathes,  etc. 

"Canon  and  Text  of  the  Old  Testament,"  by  Professor  Buhl,  of 
I,eipzig. 

"A  Studj-^  of  the  Pentateuch,"  by  Professor  Stebbins. 

"The  Bible  and  Modern  Discoveries,"  by  Henry  A.  Harper. 

"The  Chaldean  Account  of  Genesis,'   by  Smith  and  Sayce. 

"History,  Prophecy  and  the  Monuments,"  bj-  Professor  M-^Curdy. 

"The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World,"  by  Professor  Orr. 

"Patriarchal  Palestine,"  by  Professor  Sayce. 

"The  Tell-Amarna  Tablets,"  by  Major  Conder. 

"The  Bible,  Theocratic  I^iterature, "  by  Principal  Simon. 

"Christ  and  Criticism,"  by  Professor  Mead. 

"The  Oracles  of  God,"  by  Professor  Sanday. 

"A  I^ayman's  Study  of  the  English  Bible,"  by  Professor  Francis 
Bowen. 

"  Nature  and  Method  of  Revelation,"  by  Profes.sor  Fisher. 

"Creation,"  by  Professor  Arnold  Guyot. 

"Modern  Skepticism,"  by  Professor  Young,  of  Belfa.st. 

"What  is  Inspiration?"  by  Professor  De  Witt. 

"Alleged  Discrepancies  of  the  Bible,"  by  John  W.  Haley. 

"Nature  and  the  Bible,"  by  Professor  Reusch,  of  Bonn. 

An  article  of  seventy  pages  in  the  Presbyterian 
Review  for  1883,  by  Professor  Briggs,  may  also 
be  consulted  with  great  advantage,  though  the 
author  at  present  maintains  what  less  than  four- 
teen years  ago  he  so  keenly  and  mercilessly 
riddled.  There  are  manj^,  of  whom  I  am  one, 
who  think  that  the  learned  professor  has  not  sue- 


CHRIST   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.  95 

ceeded  in  demolishing  his  own  logic,  And  a 
dispassionate  survey  of  the  literature  on  both 
sides,  must  lead  to  the  conclusion  that  nearly  the 
entire  territory  of  modern  Biblical  criticism  is 
debatable  ground,  calling  for  the  cultivation  of 
the  virtues  of  modesty  and  tolerance.  ]\Iean- 
while,  Jesus  Christ  is  in  the  tossing  ship,  asleep 
as  it  may  seem,  but  with  head  pillowed  upon  the 
Scriptures  which  we  know  as  the  Old  Testament ! 


CHAPTER  IV. 
Criticism  and  the  Old  Testament. 

"  The  word  of  God  is  not  bound." 

— Timothy  ii.:  9. 

' '  The  word  of  God  is  not  boimd. ' '  Thank  God 
for  that !  The  assurance  comes  to  us  like  a 
strong  and  steady  breeze  from  the  sea  on  a  sultry 
July  day.  He  who  said  it  spake  from  a  long  ex- 
perience, during  which  he  had  encountered  the 
Jew,  the  Greek,  and  the  Roman,  and  had  con- 
vinced and  conquered  them  all.  It  is  matter  for 
profound  thanksgiving,  that  the  Scriptures  are 
invested  w^ith  an  authority  which  is  independent 
of  criticism,  and  which  does  not  require  the  vin- 
dication of  scholarship.  We  do  not  need  to  wait 
until  the  critics  have  come  to  an  agreement, 
before  we  open  our  Bibles,  and  let  them  instrudl 
and  comfort  us.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
may  not  ignore,  nor  evade,  the  duty  which  God 
lays  upon   us   to  defend  the   holy  oracles,  from 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OI.D   TESTAMENT.       97 

whatever  quarter  the  attack  may  come,  and  how- 
ever sincere  may  be  the  motives  which  induce  it. 
For  one,  I  can  not  be  silent  when  I  find  the  faith 
of  many  disturbed,  and  the  hearts  of  many  more 
deeply  pained.  I  would  contribute  what  I  may, 
and  as  quietly  as  I  can,  to  the  removal  of  doubt 
and  the  confirmation  of  confidence.  Those  who 
are  older,  I  presume,  are  not  disturbed.  These 
things  are  not  new  to  them.  But  many  who  are 
younger  have  experienced  a  somewhat  rude 
awakening,  and  have  wondered  what  it  all 
means,  and  to  such  I  feel  that  I  owe  a  most  sol- 
emn and  sacred  duty.  I  hope  I  made  it  clear  in 
the  preceding  chapter,  that  no  believer  in  Jesus 
Christ  need  hesitate  to  use  the  Old  Testament, 
upon  which  He  set  the  seal  of  His  unmistakable 
personal  endorsement.  More,  however,  needs  to 
be  said.  Having  put  my  hand  to  the  plow,  I 
must  go  to  the  end  of  the  furrow.  I  proceed  to 
call  attention  to  certain  vicious  assumptions, 
which  pervade  the  methods,  and  determine  the 
results,  of  the  revolutionary  criticism  of  the  Old 
Testament,  upon  the  validity  of  which  any  man 
or  woman  of  ordinary  intelligence  can  pass  judg- 


98  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

ment,  and  with  which  technical  scholarship  has 
little  or  nothing  to  do. 

MODERN  SCHOLARSHIP. 

lyCt  me  refer,  in  passing,  and  in  parenthesis,  to 
the  frequent  claim  that  the  weight  of  modern 
scholarship  is  with  the  new  school  of  critics.  A 
good  deal  depends  upon  what  is  meant  by  weight. 
The  most  learned  men  do  not  always  make  the 
most  noise.  Newspaper  and  review  notoriety  is 
not  always  the  measure  of  worth.  Some  years 
ago  a  colored  preacher  in  the  South  preached  a 
sermon  on  "  De  Sun  Do  Move. ' '  It  elecflrified 
his  audience.  It  secured  for  him  a  national  rep- 
utation. He  could  have  filled  the  biggest  hall  in 
any  city,  East  or  West.  But  he  did  no  damage 
to  the  Copernican  theory.  There  was  no  dis- 
turbance in  the  planetary  system.  Many  will 
recall  another  public  speaker  of  great  natural 
gifts,  who  has  entertained  large  audiences  at  fifty 
cents  a  head,  on  the  "Mistakes  of  Moses."  I 
never  even  read  the  reports  of  his  sayings,  but  I 
would  have  gone  a  hundred  miles  on  foot  to 
have  heard  Moses  on  the  mistakes  of  his  critic. 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.        99 

He  who  startles  is  alwa3^s  sure  of  an  eager  hear- 
ing and  of  a  wide  audience  ;  the  second  sober 
thought  comes  afterward.  And  the  names  which 
are  oftenest  seen  and  heard  in  present  Biblical 
criticism,  by  no  means  represent  all  the  scholar- 
ship in  Christendom. 

Among  the  most  famous  theological  faculties 
in  Germany,  are  those  of  Berlin,  Bonn,  Breslau, 
Greifsw^ald,  Halle,  Konigsberg,  Leipzig  and 
Tubingen.  In  these  universities  there  are 
seventy-three  theological  professors,  of  which 
number  thirty  belong  to  the  radical  school,  while 
forty -three  belong  to  the  moderate  and  conserva- 
tive ranks.  Every  one  of  these  men  is  at  home 
in  the  literature  of  his  department,  and  is  sup- 
posed to  be  an  independent  and  well  equipped 
scholar.  He  could  not  hold  his  place  were  he  not. 
The  benches  would  be  empt}^,  and  he  would  be 
starved  out.  It  will  be  seen  from  this  simple 
statement  that  the  lines  of  battle  are  closely 
drawn.  The  so-called  liberal  wing  has  increased 
from  ten.  to  thirty  during  the  last  twenty-five 
years,  and  the  conser\^atives  have  been  reduced 
from  fifty  to  forty-three  ;  but  in  the  eight  great 


lOO  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

universities  which  I  have  named  the  conservatives 
still  have  an  adlual  majority  of  thirteen  ;  and  such 
a  majority  at  present  means  a  good  deal,  while  it 
proves  conclusively  that  sweeping  claims  are  not 
warranted  by  the  fa(5ls.  Confining  attention  to 
the  nine  great  Prussian  universities,  the  radical 
school  is  found  to  be  represented  by  sixteen  men, 
and  the  conservative  school  numbers  twenty-six, 
in  the  older  provinces  ;  while  in  the  newer  pro- 
vinces the  proportion  is  eight  radicals  to  nine 
conservatives ;  a  total  of  twenty-four  radicals, 
and  thirty-five  conservatives;  a  majority  of  eleven 
for  the  conservative  party.  During  the  last  two 
years  the  conservatives  have  been  rapidly  gaining 
on  the  radicals,  and  the  readlion  against  radical- 
ism seems  to  be  assuming  formidable  proportions 
among  the  general  clergy  and  laity. 

Of  the  thirty-four  books  in  the  list  which  I 
have  given  in  the  preceding  chapter,  there  are 
seventeen,  just  one-half,  from  the  pens  of  Ameri- 
can scholars  and  specialists,  every  one  of  them 
conservative  in  tone,  every  one  of  them  written 
within  the  last  fifteen  years,  with  full  and  accurate 
acquaintance  of  the  most  recent  literature,  and  no 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD  TESTAMENT.     lOI 

one  can  read  these  books  without  discovering  that 
these  men  knew  what  they  were  talking  about. 
The  statement  that  scholarship  is  pracftically  a 
unit  for  the  radical  criticism  cannot  be  made  good. 
It  is  not  true  of  Europe  ;  it  is  not  true  of  Ameri- 
ca. The  most  prominent  advocates  of  radical 
criticism  among  us  are  Harper,  Briggs,  Toy, 
Mitchell,  Smith  and  Haupt.  But  these  men  are 
not  the  superiors  in  scholarship  of  Beecher,  Os- 
good, Green,  Mead,  Curtiss,  Denio  and  Bissell. 
Radical  criticism  is  represented  in  Boston,  Yale, 
Harvard,  Cornell,  Johns  Hopkins,  Union,  Chi- 
cago and  Andover.  But  conservative  criticism 
holds  its  ground  in  Bangor,  Yale,  Hartford, 
Princeton,  Drew,  Madison,  Auburn,  Rochester, 
Rutgers,  Allegheny,  Crozer,  Lane,  Louisville, 
Chicago,  Evanston,  Oberlin,  Omaha  and  Oak- 
land. Of  Congregational  theological  seminaries, 
Andover  is  the  only  one  which  can  be  classed  as 
radical ;  Bangor,  Hartford,  Oberlin  and  Oakland 
may  be  classed  as  conservative  ;  while  Yale  and 
Chicago  occupy  middle  ground,  and  the  mediat- 
ing critical  school  is  practically  conservative. 
Even  Professors  Harper,  Smith,  and  Briggs  make 


I02  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   EIRE. 

SO  many  important  concessions  that  they  may  be 
regarded  as  seriously  antagonizing  the  funda- 
mental dodlrines  of  the  Wellhausen  school,  sav- 
ing their  faith  in  a  Divine  revelation  at  the 
expense  of  logical  consistency.  And  in  the  war 
which  is  upon  us,  the  lines  must  be  sharply 
drawn  upon  the  main  issues,  which  are  questions 
of  historical  criticism,  and  not  niceties  of  literary 
analysis.  The  truth  is  that  the  radical  critics  are 
still  deep  in  the  woods. 

THE    CRUCIAL    QUESTIONS. 

At  this  point  it  may  be  well  to  state  what  the 
crucial  questions  under  debate  are.  When  it  is 
said  that  the  majority  of  critics  are  agreed  in  the 
literary  analysis  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  that  the 
orthodox  view  is  maintained  only  by  a  few  older 
scholars,  the  statement  is  misleading.  The  ortho- 
dox view  is  assumed  to  be  that  Moses  wrote  every 
line  in  the  Pentateuch,  including  even  the  account 
of  his  death,  and  that  for  the  matter  contained  in 
Genesis  he  was  indebted  to  supernatural  revela- 
tions from  God.  Thus  defined,  there  have  been 
no  orthodox   Biblical   critics  ^  for   a   good   many 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.     I03 

years  ;  if  indeed  there  ever  were  many.  And,  in 
like  manner,  all  scholars  who  have  conceded  that 
Genesis  discloses  evidences  of  the  use  of  older 
documentary  and  traditional  authorities,  in  nar- 
ratives, and  snatches  of  poetry,  and  genealogical 
tables,  and  who  admit  different  layers  of  legisla- 
tion in  the  middle  books  of  the  Pentateuch,  not 
necessarily  committed  to  writing  by  Moses  ;  who, 
for  example,  grant  that  Deuterononi}^  is  a  separate 
book,  completed  in  its  present  form  after  the 
death  of  Moses,  that  the  Priest-code  is  from  a 
different  hand,  and  that  Genesis  is  a  fusion  of 
older  documents  —  have  been  grouped  together. 
But  this  is  the  very  group  where  the  lines  of  battle 
are  drazvu  betiveen  the  radicals  and  the  conserva- 
tives. Orthodoxy  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  problem.  It  is  not  a  question  of  the- 
ology which  is  under  discussion.  The  phrase 
orthodox  criticism  is  pure  nonsense.  One  might 
as  well  talk  of  orthodox  astronomy  or  chemistry. 
The  debate  lies  in  the  region  of  hard  facfts.  The 
criticism  concerns  the  historical  value  of  the  doai- 
ments  which  make  up  our  present  Peiitateuch. 
Questions  of  authoirship,  of  date,  and  of  struc5ture, 


104  OIvD  TKS'TAM^NI^  UNDER  FIRE. 

have  become  preliminary  and  subordinate.  These 
very  problems  are  approached  with  presump- 
tions which  cast  discredit  upon  the  credibility 
of  the  documents,  and  under  whose  application 
the  record  is  reduced  to  a  mass  of  fables,  deliber- 
ately invented  and  forged.  At  that  point,  the 
only  proper  line  of  cleavage  can  be  drawn,  and 
when  it  is  drawn  there,  the  radical  critics  are  in 
a  hopeless  minority.  Sober  scholarship  repudiates 
their  assumptions,  methods  and  conclusions. 

THE    CLAIMS  OF    CRITICISM. 

Let  me  state,  as  briefly  as  I  can,  the  claims  for 
which  the  modern  radical  criticism  is  contending. 
The  seriousness  of  that  contention  appears  only 
when  it  is  viewed  as  a  whole.  Moses,  we  are 
told,  did  not  write  the  Pentateuch.  Some  things 
may  have  been  recorded  by  him,  but  not  very 
much.  The  ten  commandments,  as  they  appear 
in  Exodus,  are  certainly  not  in  the  form  which  he 
gave  to  them,  and  the  whole  story  about  the 
giving  of  the  law  from  Sinai  is  a  poetic  invention 
of  much  later  date,  to  give  impressiveness  to  the 
Decalogue.     Neither  the  narratives,  nor  the  laws 


CRI'TICISM   AND   THE)   OLD   TESTAMENT.     IO5 

of  the  Pentateuch,  have  in  any  large  and  impor- 
tant part  come  from  Moses.  The  Pentateuch  is 
declared  to  be,  in  its  main  intention,  a  law  book, 
and  its  historical  material  is  treated  as  worthless. 
The  legislation  is  declared  to  be  the  core  of  the 
record;  and  the  books,  it  is  claimed,  were  compiled 
solely  with  a  view  to  enforce  that  legislation.  An 
analysis  of  these  laws  is  declared  to  prove  that  they 
could  not  have  been  enacfted  until  about  450  B.  C, 
at  least  a  thousand  years  after  Moses.  They  con- 
stituted the  Priest-code  of  the  second  temple,  and 
were  for  the  most  part  unknown  before.  But  to 
invest  them  with  the  authority  of  Moses,  his  name 
was  freely  used  in  the  enadlments,  and  the  wilder- 
ness history  of  the  tabernacle  was  invented  to  sup- 
ply a  popular  historical  coloring.  The  same  thing 
had  been  done  on  a  smaller  scale  two  hundred 
years  before  Ezra,  under  the  reign  of  King  Josiah, 
when  the  Book  of  the  Law  was  said  to  have  been 
found  in  the  temple.  That  Book  of  the  Law  is 
assumed  to  have  been  our  present  Deuteronomy, 
and  when  the  historian  tells  us  that  Hilkiah  pro- 
fessed to  have  found  Deuteronomy  in  the  temple, 
we  are  told  that  we  must  interpret  this  as  a  very 


Io6  OI.D  tkstamknt  undkr  firk. 

polite  hint  that  the  priest  had  written  it  himself, 
in  part  or  entire  ;  in  other  words,  that  he  had 
been  guilty  of  a  pious  literary  forgery,  in  order 
that,  by  the  help  of  the  authority  of  Moses,  he 
might  wean  the  people  from  their  idolatry,  and 
concentrate  the  religious  reverence  of  the  nation 
upon  a  single  central  sandluary.  Thus,  Deuter- 
onomy is  the  literary  invention  of  the  seventh 
century  B.  C,  and  the  Levitical  legislation  is  the 
literary  invention  of  the  fifth  century  B.  C,  while 
in  both  cases  the  history  is  supplied  by  way  of 
artificial  framework.  To  this  latter  period  also 
are  referred  all  such  narrative  materials,  as  disclose 
the  style  and  point  of  view  charadleristic  of  the 
priestly  writer  ;  as,  for  example,  the  first  chapter 
of  Genesis.  Then  there  are  supposed  to  be  two 
other  documents,  older  than  either  of  the  pre- 
ceding, and  independent  of  each  other,  belonging 
to  the  eighth  and  ninth  centuries  B.  C;  one  cur- 
rent in  Northern  Palestine,  the  other  in  Southern 
Palestine,  known  as  the  Klohist  and  the  Jehovist 
or  Jahvist.  These  four  documents  are  said  to 
have  been  reduced  to  their  present  shape  by  a 
Reda(5lor,  or  by  several  Reda(5lors,  who  arranged 


CRITICISM   AND   THB   OI.D   TESTAMKNT.     IO7 

and  altered  the  materials  to  suit  their  purpose. 
Every  document  has  been  tampered  with  in  this 
way,  and  the  critics  do  not  hesitate  to  charge  the 
Redactors  with  both  literary  awkwardness  and 
dishonesty. 

THE    CLAIM    STARTLING. 

This  review  may  startle  the  reader.  It  is 
enough  to  startle  any  one  who  has  not  lost  all 
faith  in  the  ordinary  honesty  of  the  writers  of 
the  Bible.  But  I  have  not  overdrawn  the  pidlure. 
In  detail,  and  as  a  whole,  the  history  is  dis- 
credited. Some  leave  a  little  truth  in  the  nar- 
rative ;  others  leave  none  at  all.  Even  the  reality 
of  the  Exodus  is  denied,  and  as  for  the  nar- 
ratives in  Genesis,  their  historical  reality  is  sur- 
rendered. The  calm  verdicfl;  of  Professor  Robert- 
son, of  Glasgow,  whom  the  critics  claim  as  one  of 
their  number,  will  commend  itself  to  the  cautious 
and  reverent  student,  when  he  sums  up  a  long 
discussion  on  the  Pentateuch  in  these  words : 
' '  It  may  be  admitted  that  the  component  parts  of 
the  books  belong  to  different  periods,  the  death 
of  Moses,  for  example,  being  recorded  side  by 


io8         OI.D  te:stamknt  undkr  fire. 

side  with  words  spoken  and  written  by  Moses.    It 
may  be  admitted  that  we  have  three  stages  of 
legislation,  as  represented   in   the  Book  of  the 
Covenant,  the  I^evitical  Code,  and  Deuteronomy  ; 
it  may  be  admitted  that  there  are  variations  in  the 
laws,  and  an  advance  from  a  lower  to  a  higher 
stage ;  but  all  this  does  not  necessitate  the  as- 
sumption that  these  Codes  are  separated  by  inter- 
vals of  centuries.     All  this,  and  much  more,  may 
be    admitted ;    but   all  who  would   give  to  the 
Biblical  writers  credit  for  ordinary  honesty,  will 
hesitate  before  admitting  that  we  owe  a  great  part 
of  the  Pentateuch  to  literary  fi(5lion.     When  it  is 
gravely  asserted  that  prophets  and  the  best  spirits 
of  the  nation  framed  first  one  Code,  and  then  an- 
other, with  the  deliberate  intention  to  represent 
the  history  of  the  past  as  something  different  from 
what  it  a(5lually  was,  when  the  so-called  histor- 
ical books  have  to  be  expurgated  before  they  can 
be  used  as  evidence,  one  may  despair  of  arriving 
at  the  truth  altogether,  or  at  once  set  about  recon- 
stru6ling   the   history  without  the   aid  of  these 
books."     And   Professor   Hommel,    of  Munich, 
whom  the  critics  also  claim,  has  recently  placed 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT.     109 

himself  upon  record  in  these  words  :  ' '  The  more 
I  investigate  Semitic  antiquity,  the  more  I  am 
impressed  by  the  utter  baselessness  of  the  view  of 
Wellhausen." 

THE    PENTATEUCH    A    NARRATIVE. 

We  have  noticed  that  the  critics  assume  that 
the  Pentateuch  is  primarily  a  book  of  laws,  and 
that  the  history  is  subordinate  to  the  legislation. 
lyCt  us  read  now  the  Pentateuch  for  ourselves, 
and  we  shall  discover  that  the  very  reverse  is  true. 
From  cover  to  cover  the  five  books  of  Moses 
deal  with  histor}^,  and  the  laws  are  inserted  only 
as  part  of  the  history.  The  historic  thread  is 
renewed  in  Joshua,  carried  on  through  Judges, 
and  pursued  through  the  books  of  Samuel  and 
Kings.  One  plain,  pra(5lical  purpose  controls  the 
entire  literature — to  trace  the  fortunes  of  Israel 
from  the  call  of  Abraham  to  the  captivity,  and 
the  chapters  of  Genesis  preceding  the  call  of 
Abraham  furnish  the  historical  preface  to  his  sep- 
aration. Narrative  is  the  primary  and  pervading 
element.  In  the  New  Testament,  the  legal  por- 
tions are  regarded  as  having  been  set  aside  and 


no  OI.D   TKSTAMKNT  UNDKR   FIRK. 

annulled,  but  the  history  is  regarded  and  referred 
to  as  authentic.  Be  the  author  or  authors  of  the 
Pentateuch  who  they  may  be,  the  critics  blunder 
in  assuming  that  they  concentrated  their  atten- 
tion upon  the  legal  enadlments.  These  are  woven 
into  the  history  at  the  points  where  they  belong, 
and  then  the  history  proceeds  without  reference 
to  them.  It  was  the  story  upon  which  their  in- 
terest was  centered,  and  this  must  determine  our 
critical  handling  of  the  history  which  they  have 
given  us.  It  is  an  arbitrary,  unwarranted,  and 
criminal  method  of  procedure,  to  discredit  their 
honesty  and  veracity  in  the  very  field  where  they 
have  concentrated  and  massed  their  abilities  and 
resources. 

Passing,  now,  this  arbitrary  and  mischievous 
reversal  of  critical  perspedlive,  let  me  ask  atten- 
tion to  certain  •  other  equally  unfounded  assump- 
tions, upon  which  the  new  critics  build  their  rev- 
olutionary conclusions. 

THEORY   OF   EVOLUTION. 

One  of  these  assumptions,  to  which  great  and 
decisive  prominence  has  recently  been  given,  is 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD   TESTAMENT.     Ill 

that  the  so-called  theory  of  evolution  has  been 
scientifically  established,  and  should  therefore  be 
accepted  as  a  canon  of  criticism.  It  has  been  in- 
vested with  the  authority  of  the  multiplication 
table  ;  so  that  whatever  does  not  square  with  it 
must  be  false,  so  false  that  we  need  not  trouble 
ourselves  about  it.  The  theory  is  assumed  to  be 
the  one  supreme  law  in  the  realms  of  matter  and 
of  mind.  It  shapes  history,  and  gives  birth  to 
religion,  just  as  it  molds  the  stars.  All  things 
begin  at  the  lowest  point  conceivable,  and  thence, 
by  gradual  stages,  they  advance  to  an  ever-en- 
larging perfe(5tion.  There  are  no  breaks  in  the 
process.  There  are  no  gaps  in  the  march. 
There  are  no  interventions,  no  miracles,  and 
hence  all  miraculous  accounts  are  scientifically 
absurd.  Man  has  come  up  from  the  sea-slime, 
and  has  been  constantly  rising.  Sin  is  only  the 
remnant  in  him  of  his  animal  ancestry  A  fall 
from  primitive  innocence  there  never  has  been, 
and  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis  are  purely  fabu- 
lous— exquisite  poetry,  but  historically  false. 
Evolution  is  the  infallible  touchstone  by  which 
the  Bible  and  Christianity  must  stand  or  fall. 


112  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER    FIRE. 

But  the  principle  is  not  logically  carried  out. 
For  there  are  many  who,  while  they  boldly  cut 
out  all  miracles  from  the  Old  Testament,  dare  not 
use  the  surgery  upon  the  New.     They  claim  that 
the  high  theology  of  Deuteronomy  and  of  the 
Psalms  proves  these  books  to  be  a  late  literary 
produ6l ;    but  they  dare  not  assert   this  of  the 
Gospels  and  the  Epistles  of  the  New  Testament. 
They   claim   that   the  primitive  Mosaic  religion 
must  have  been  very  crude,  but  they  dare  not  say 
that  about  apostolic   Christianity.     They   claim 
that  from  Moses  to  Ezra  there  was  an  uninter- 
rupted advance  ;  they  dare  not  say  that  of  the 
history  between  Paul  and  Luther.     They  mini- 
mize the  miracles  of  the  Exodus,  and  of  Daniel 
in  the  den  of  lions,  but  they  grant  that  Christ 
was  born  of  a   virgin  and  that   He  rose   from 
the  dead.     Eet  us   have   thorough  work.     And 
thorough  work  demands  that  with  the  elimination 
of  the   miraculous  and  supernatural  in  the  Old 
Testament,  the  same  elements  vShall  be  cut  out  of 
the  New.     Moses  and  Christ,  the  Eaw  and  the 
Gospel,  fall  into  the  same  grave.     And  the  only 
reason  why  this  is  not  done  in  the  case  of  Christ 


CRITICISM   AND  THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.     II 3 

and  the  Gospel,  is  because  the  fadls  of  Christian- 
ity are  so  stubborn  that  the  critics  do  not  venture 
to  beat  their  heads  against  them.  They  prefer  to 
be  inconsistent,  rather  than  stultify  themselves. 
But  that  very  hesitancy  shows  the  inherent  weak- 
ness of  the  claim. 

WHAT    IS    EVOLUTION  ? 

What,  now,  is  evolution?  Darwin  and  Wal- 
lace did  not  agree  in  their  definition,  and  in  the 
scope  of  its  application.  Wallace  insisted  that  it 
did  not  apply  to  man.  The  word  has  never  yet 
been  defined. 

Everybody  uses  the  word,  and  presumably 
knows  its  meaning  ;  yet  nobody  seems  to  be  able 
to  give  a  definition  which  is  clear  and  final.  No 
magician's  wand  can  play  so  many  fantastic 
tricks  as  can  this  word.  It  can  be  theistic  and 
atheistic,  to  suit  the  speaker's  taste.  It  can 
eliminate  miracles,  and  it  can  make  them  feel 
at  home.  At  one  time  it  bows  God  out  of  the 
universe,  and  has  no  use  for  Him  ;  at  another 
time  it  makes  him  immanent,  omnipresent  and 
omnipotent,  enthroned  and  personally  acflive  in 


114  ^^'^  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

every  atom.  Renan  needed  no  God  to  account 
for  the  origin  of  things.  But  his  theory  of  evolu- 
tion provided  for  the  ultimate  appearance  of  a  man 
who  would  master  the  secret  of  death  and  life,  and 
who  would  thus  empty  all  the  graveyards  of  the 
past,  bCvStowing  immortality  upon  every  one  of 
their  hapless  victims.  So  that  evolution  can  give 
birth  even  to  God.  There  is  no  God  at  the  begin- 
ning, but  there  is  one  at  the  end.  It  is  plain, 
therefore,  that  evolution  may  be  so  defined  as  to 
provide  for  supernatural  intervention  and  guid- 
ance, and  for  the  most  astounding  miracles.  But 
the  trouble  is  that  these  stay  only  in  the  definition. 
Prac5lically  they  are  excluded,  and  what  remains 
may  be  summed  up  in  the  following  items  : 

1.  The  affirmation  that  the  higher  grades  of 
being  have  proceeded  from  the  lower  by  natural 
generation,  and  that  all  grades  of  being  have  a 
common,  natural  ancestry.  The  fire-mist  has 
given  birth  to  crystals  and  to  genius,  to  coral 
reefs  and  to  the  Christian  religion. 

2.  The  affirmation  that  this  unfolding  has 
been  unbroken  and  continuous,  without  a  single 
gap  and  without  creative  epochs. 


I 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD   TKSTAMKNT.     II 5 

3.  The  affirmation  that  the  result  has  been 
reached  by  the  operation  of  inherent  forces, 
neither  requiring  nor  permitting  the  superintend- 
ence and  the  guidance  of  the  personal  God.  The 
universe  is  self-evolved,  and  self-evolved  from  the 
primitive  atom.  This  is  what  evolution  is  made 
to  mean  by  its  great  advocates,  whether  they  so 
define  it  or  not.  It  makes  the  polyp  the  real 
ancestor  of  man,  and  eliminates  the  supernatural 
from  science,  literature  and  history. 

NOT    ESTABLISHED    BY    SCIENCE. 

The  common  element  in  all  definitions,  which 
are  radical,  is  the  denial  of  creative  epochs,  the 
affirmation  that  the  complexity  of  the  universe, 
man  included,  has  been  the  result,  in  unbroken 
progression,  under  natural  law,  by  inherent 
forces,  of  rudimentar}^  cells  and  atoms.  The  uni- 
verse has  grown  out  of  the  atom,  as  the  oak 
grows  out  of  the  acorn.  There  is  difference  in 
the  result,  but  there  is  identity  of  method.  Now, 
if  anything  is  clear,  it  is  perfe(fl;ly  clear  that  this 
amazing  theory  has  not  been  made  out.  There 
are  several  gaps  which  have  never  been  bridged. 


Il6  OI.D  TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRE. 

The  universe  is  supposed  to  have  had  its  origin 
in  a  sea  of  raging  fire,  whirling  with  inconceiv- 
able rapidity,  gradually  cooling  and  condensing, 
throwing  ofi"  rings  now  and  then,  and  so  forming 
suns  and  stars.  If  that  fire-mist  ever  contained  any 
living  germs,  they  must  have  been  utterly  de- 
stroyed long  before  the  planets  cooled.  Whence, 
then,  came  life?  It  is  here  ;  how  did  it  emerge 
from  that  furnace  of  fire  ?  We  are  told  that  the 
cell  evoluted  from  the  atom.  We  are  asked  to 
believe  in  spontaneous  generation.  Huxley  be- 
lieved that,  but  he  also  very  frankly  admitted 
that  all  the  scientific  evidence  of  two  hundred 
years  was  squarely  against  him,  and  that  there 
was  no  known  exception  to  the  old  dictum : 
* '  Om?ie  vivum  ex  vivo  ' ' — all  life  from  life.  The 
atoms  refuse  to  give  birth  to  a  cell  ;  and  at  that 
point  evolution  breaks  down.  It  breaks  down 
again  when  we  pass  from  plants  to  animals. 
The  cells  look  exacftly  alike  under  the  micro- 
scope, and  we  could  not  tell  which  belonged  to  a 
maple  and  which  to  an  elephant,  but  the  vegeta- 
ble cell  refuses  to  give  birth  to  the  animal  cell. 
Break  number  two.       Evolution    breaks    down 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD   TESTAMENT.     II 7 

again  when  we  try  to  pass  from  the  animal  to 
man.  Self-inspection  and  self-judgment,  the  ac- 
tivity of  the  higher  reason  and  of  conscience,  the 
seeds  of  these  are  not  in  the  brute.  Break  num- 
ber three.  These  tremendous  gaps  condemn  the 
theory.  Intermediate  forms  are  wanting  between 
the  inorganic  and  the  organic,  between  plants  and 
animals,  between  animals  and  man.  At  these 
points  the  transition  is  sharp  and  sudden,  so  that 
even  Mr.  Huxley  protested  against  the  maxim, 
^^  Nafura  non  facit  saltiim,''  and  insisted  that 
nature  did  make  leaps.  But  an  evolution  which 
must  be  helped  out  by  leaps,  admits  just  what 
the  creation  theory  affirms,  and  admits  all  which 
it  affirms.  Such  an  evolution  is  in  exa(5l  agree- 
ment with  the  first  chapters  of  Genesis,  which 
affirm  that  even  man  was  made  from  the  dust  of 
the  ground,  but  not  through  the  operation  of 
forces  inherent  in  plant  and  animal  forms  of  life. 
I  have  mentioned  only  three  gaps.  The  great 
German  scientist,  Du  Bois-Reymond,  pointed  out 
seven  ' '  impassable  chasms. ' '  And  Virchow  des* 
ignates  the  radical  evolutionists  as  ' '  bubble  com- 
panies."     The  facfts  prove  that  while  there  is 


Il8  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

truth  in  evolution,  the  development  has  its  fixed 
limitations,  and  identity  of  descent  for  all  liv- 
ing forms  is  emphatically  negatived.  At  all 
events,  it  is  a  pure  assumption.  In  evolution,  as 
an  orderly  development  and  advance,  every  intel- 
ligent man  believes  ;  and  in  that  sense  the  doc- 
trine is  as  old  in  literature  as  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis.  But  evolution,  as  a  process  of  uninter- 
rupted differentiation  of  being,  under  natural 
laws,  and  from  inherent  forces,  is  an  unproved 
theory,  with  all  the  evidence  squarely  against  it. 
So  long  as  that  is  true,  I,  for  one,  am  not  going 
to  let  evolution  reconstrucft  my  Bible  for  me. 

FALSE    IN    LITERATURE    AND    HISTORY. 

I  claim  more.  I  claim  that  while,  in  the  realm 
of  science,  evolution  is  an  unproved  theory,  in 
the  realms  of  literature  and  history  it  is  demon- 
strably false.  It  is  not  true  that  the  earliest 
literature  of  a  nation  is  the  crudest,  and  its  latest 
the  best.  It  is  not  true  that  the  line  is  one  of 
steady  improvement.  This  is  not  true  of  Greece, 
or  Rome,  or  Germany,  or  France,  or  England,  or 
the  United  States.     Homer  never  had  a  compet- 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT,      II 9 

itor.  Shakespeare  and  Milton  have  not  3'et  been 
eclipsed.  Socrates,  Plato,  and  Aristotle  are  still 
unrivaled.  Madison  and  Jefferson  were  not  pig- 
mies compared  to  our  present  statesmen.  Wash- 
ino^ton  is  still  without  a  peer.  We  are  not  more 
skillful  builders  than  the  men  who  reared  the 
p3'ramids,  nor  are  we  greater  architecfts  than  the 
men  who  designed  and  superintended  the  cathe- 
drals. We  have  not  eclipsed  the  old  masters  in 
painting,  sculpture,  and  music.  Civilizations  do 
not  necessarily  grow  better  as  they  grow  older. 
Turkey,  India,  and  China  prove  the  very  reverse. 
They  have  been  rapidlj-  going  down.  A  book  on 
* '  Degeneration  ' '  a  few  years  ago  attracfled  wide 
attention.  The  pidlure  was  overdrawn.  But  the 
facfl  is  that  it  requires  the  strenuous  and  contin- 
uous exertions  of  all  good  men  to  prevent  things 
from  becoming  hopelessl^^  bad.  The  machines 
are  everywhere  and  always  against  righteousness 
and  improvement.  Progress  is  not  due  to  them, 
but  to  the  men  who  break  away  from  them. 

PERSONALITY. 

There  is  one  force  in  literature  and  in  history 
of  which  evolution  takes  no  account,  and  which 


I20  OI.D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

it  cannot  explain.  It  is  personality;  strong,  self- 
poised,  determined  personality.  Again  and  again, 
a  man  appears  who  challenges  the  world  to  com- 
bat, and  he  wins.  It  may  be  Paul ;  it  may  be 
Athanasius  ;  it  may  be  Luther  ;  it  may  be  Jesus 
Christ.  Such  men  are  prophets  of  God,  and  they 
inaugurate  new  epochs.  They  shatter  prisons 
and  set  men  free.  They  arrest  the  growing 
degeneracy  and  usher  in  the  better  days.  They 
are  not  the  produ<5l  of  blind  and  inherent  evolu- 
tionary forces.  One,  at  least,  has  defied  every 
attempt  at  classification.  He  stands  alone,  un- 
approached  and  unapproachable  —  the  Son  of 
Mary,  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth,  the  Prophet  of 
Galilee.  Nothing  in  Greece,  or  Rome,  or  Judea, 
explains  Him.  He  was  and  remains  the  absolute 
antithesis  of  His  time,  and  of  all  times.  Evolution 
goes  to  pieces  when  it  touches  Him.  God  is 
manifest  when  He  appears.  And  what  is  true  of 
Christ,  is  true  of  every  great  leader  who  has 
appeared  in  history.  Personality  dominates  in 
literature,  in  art,  in  history,  in  war  and  in  peace. 
Carlyle  may  have  gone  too  far  in  his  hero  wor- 
ship, in  his  unstinted  praise  of  great  and  energetic 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OI.D   TKSTAMENT.     121 

men.  There  is  moral  force,  for  good  or  evil,  in 
the  people,  too  ;  and  we  negledl  that  at  our  peril. 
Still  it  remains  true  that  personality  is  the  decisive 
force  in  histor3^  And  personality  is  the  absolute 
antithesis  of  evolution.  Unproved  in  science, 
demonstrably  false  in  literature,  art  and  history, 
the  theory  of  evolution  cannot  be  accepted  as  a 
canon  of  criticism.  Certainly,  not  at  its  demand, 
shall  I  cease  to  believe  and  preach  that  God  cre- 
ated man  in  His  own  likeness  and  image,  that 
man  fell  by  voluntary  transgression,  and  that 
Jesus  Christ  was  born  of  a  virgin,  died  to  save 
man,  and  rose  again  from  the  sepulcher. 

THE    QUESTION    OF    DATE. 

I  have  dealt  with  the  most  formidable  assump- 
tions first,  when  perhaps  I  should  have  considered 
them  last.  A  third  assumption  upon  which  the 
new  critics  proceed,  is  that  by  literary  analysis 
and  dissecftion  the}^  can  fix  the  date  of  a  writing, 
and  determine  its  authorship,  without  reference 
to  tradition  and  in  diredl  opposition  to  it.  But 
the  first  of  these  can  be  done  only  by  comparison 
with  contemporaneous  literature.     We  know,  for 


122  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

example,  the  style  and  the  spelling  of  Chaucer's 
time.  If  now  an  anonymous  manuscript,  without 
date,  should  be  discovered,  written  in  that  ancient 
style,  and  found  in  ever}^  respect  to  correspond  to 
it,  we  could  locate  the  time  of  its  composition. 
And  if  such  a  writing  should  claim  to  have  been 
written  in  that  early  time,  and  should,  upon 
comparison,  be  found  to  employ  the  style  current 
five  hundred  years  later,  we  should  pronounce  it 
a  forgery.  The  method  is  legitimate,  but  there 
must  be  contemporaneous  literature.  The  new 
critics  argue  from  the  style  of  the  Old  TcvStament 
books  to  the  date  of  their  first  appearance  ;  but 
they  argue  in  a  circle,  because  there  is  no  con- 
temporaneous literature.  The  Old  Testament  is 
the  only  Hebrew  literature  which  has  come  down 
to  us  from  the  centuries  before  Christ.  It  is  im- 
possible to  determine  by  literary  analysis  what  is 
oldest  and  what  is  newest.  And,  in  fadl,  the 
critics  are  using  this  argument  from  style  with 
less  and  less  frequency  and  confidence.  Vernes 
insists  that  the  argument  from  style  is  absolutely 
worthless. 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD   TKSTAMKNT.     1 23 
THE    PROBLEM    OF    AUTHORSHIP. 

The  discovery  of  authorship  by  Hterary  dissec- 
tion is  still  more  difficult.  Let  me  give  an  illus- 
tration. A  hundred  and  twenty-five  years  ago 
the  letters  of  Junius  created  intense  excitement  in 
England.  They  were  a  sharp  and  severe  arraign- 
ment of  public  men.  The  author  did  not  hesitate 
to  attack  the  crown.  Everybody  tried  to  find  out 
who  he  was,  and  from  his  retirement  he  defied 
them  all.  He  was  evidently  a  man  of  great 
ability,  and  acquainted  with  State  secrets.  Men 
winced  under  his  saber  strokes.  Had  he  been 
discovered  it  would  have  fared  badly  with  him. 
Every  art  of  literary  criticism  has  been  used  in 
the  attempt  to  extracft  the  secret.  But  the  secret 
died  with  the  author  and  one  or  two  of  his  friends, 
and  it  never  will  be  known  who  Junius  was. 
This  shows  the  impotence  of  literary  analysis.  If 
a  book  is  anonymous,  no  literary  disse(5lion,  in 
the  absence  of  historical  evidence  or  ancient  tra- 
dition, can  solve  the  problem.  It  must  be  credited 
to  some  unknown  man,  and  that  leaves  us  no 
wiser  than  before.  If  the  critics  cannot  tell  us 
who  wrote  the  Pentateuch,  they  do  not  help  us 


124  ^'^^   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

much.  If  they  cannot  locate  the  documents,  they 
do  not  help  us  much.  Their  guesses  do  not  make 
us  wiser.  If  they  cannot  tell  us  who  wrote  the 
last  twenty-seven  chapters  of  Isaiah,  they  do  not 
help  us  much.  Kwald  says  there  were  seven  of 
them,  but  he  cannot  name  one  of  them.  He  does 
not  help  us  much.  Meanwhile,  the  Pentateuch  is 
one  unbroken  narrative,  in  the  course  of  which 
some  things  are  positively  declared  to  have  been 
committed  to  writing  by  Moses,  while  all  of  it  is 
said  to  have  been  commanded  or  authorized  by 
him  ;  so  that  it  looks  as  if  he  had  more  to  do  with 
it,  than  all  the  Klohists  and  Jahvists  and  Deuter- 
onomists  and  Redadlors  combined.  Meanwhile, 
the  last  twenty-seven  chapters  of  Isaiah  have 
always  been  bound  up  in  the  same  book  with  the 
preceding  chapters,  and  are  found  to  have  been 
attributed  to  him  as  early  as  two  hundred  years 
before  Christ ;  so  that  the  authorship  of  Isaiah 
remains  as  firm  as  ever,  in  spite  of  all  the  critics 
have  said.  The  literary  analysis  of  assumed 
anonymous  documents  is,  and  must  always  be, 
absolutely  fruitless,  and  it  has  added  nothing  to 
our  knowledge.     It  has  provoked  our  admiration 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD   TESTAMENT,     1 25 

for  its  patience  and  brilliancy  ;  it  has  supplied  us 
with  any  number  of  ingenious  guesses;  but  it  has 
not  enlightened  our  darkness  with  so  much  as  one 
flash  of  light. 

RUTH    AND    CANTICLES. 

The  arbitrariness  of  the  critical  procedure,  and 
the  barrenness  of  its  results,  may  be  illustrated 
from  two  examples  —  the  way  in  which  the  books 
of  Ruth  and  Canticles  are  handled.  Ruth  is  by 
many  critics  located  at  the  period  of  the  Exile. 
Wellhausen  places  it  considerably  later,  after 
Chronicles,  because  he  claims  that  the  genealogi- 
cal paragraph  with  which  Ruth  ends  must  have 
been  borrowed  from  Chronicles.  Canon  Driver 
says  this  paragraph  may  have  been  added  by  a 
later  hand,  and  claims  that  the  purity  of  the  style 
points  to  an  early  date.  In  the  case  of  Job, 
however,  no  weight  is  given  to  this  argument. 
In  Ruth  it  is  decisive,  in  Job  it  is  worthless. 
Davidson  credits  Ruth  to  the  age  of  Hezekiah. 
Robertson  Smith  says  the  language  is  post  clas- 
sical ;  Driver  says  it  is  classical.  Neither  knows 
anything  about  it. 


126  OI.D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

The  Song  of  Solomon  supplies  an  even  more 
impressive  illustration  of  the  barrenness  of  critical 
handling.  The  inscription  is  part  of  the  text, 
and  in  the  most  unqualified  way  affirms  the  Solo- 
monic authorship.  It  is  declared  to  be  his  * '  Song 
of  Songs  " — that  is,  the  choicest  of  his  songs. 
It  has  never  been  credited  to  any  one  else.  The 
tradition  is  ancient  and  uniform.  In  the  second 
century  before  Christ,  the  Book  of  Kcclesiasticus 
credits  it  to  Solomon.  Of  course,  the  critics  deny 
that  Solomon  had  anything  to  do  with  it.  But 
not  one  of  them  can  tell  us  who  was  the  author, 
nor  when  and  where  he  lived.  They  tell  us  that 
these  things  are  involved  in  obscurity.  Some 
have  argued  for  a  late  date,  from  the  style. 
Others  have  shown  most  conclusively  that  there 
is  no  such  degeneracy,  and  that  the  peculiarities 
in  the  di(5lion  are  nothing  more  than  poetical 
abbreviations,  or  variations  belonging  to  the  He- 
brew dialedl  of  Northern  Palestine,  where  we 
know  that  Solomon  had  a  magnificent  summer 
palace  ;  so  that  the  majority  of  those  who  deny 
that  Solomon  composed  Canticles,  place  the  poem 
within  a  decade  or  two  after  Solomon's  death,  and 


I 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OI.D   TESTAMENT.     1 27 

make  it  anonymous.  This  is  the  judgment  of 
Davidson,  Smith,  and  Driver.  And  there  is 
nothing  harsh  in  saying,  that  such  a  conclusion 
is  simply  a  confession  that  the  critics  do  not  know 
what  to  do  with  the  book.  Their  concessions 
are  so  material,  that  the  Solomonic  authorship  is 
the  simplest  solution,  but  this  they  deny  by  sim- 
ply saying  that  he  could  not  possibly  have  written 
it.  And  this  is  a  fair  sample  of  a  good  deal  of 
higher  criticism. 

THE    CRITICAL    PARTITION. 

Let  me  add  another  example,  showing  the  arbi- 
trariness and  the  barrenness  of  the  critical  pro- 
cedure. It  is  almost  incredible  in  what  bewilder- 
ing mazes  the  literary  critics  lose  themselves, 
in  attempting  to  trace  the  lines  of  composite 
strucfture.  Genesis  is  the  easiest  book  by  which 
to  pass  judgment  upon  the  soundness  of  their 
methods.  With  it  Astruc  began,  and  its  literary 
analysis  has  been  condu(5led  with  painstaking 
care.  In  their  views  of  Genesis,  too,  the  critics 
are  more  generally  agreed  than  they  are  at  any 
other  point.     Genesis  is  supposed  to  represent  the 


128  OLD   TKSTAMKNT   UNDKR   FIRK. 

work  of  not  less  than  seven  men,  reduced  to  its 
present  form  by  the  Reda(5lor.  Of  course,  these 
men  are  unknown,  and  they  are  designated  P,  J, 
J',  E,  JE,  R,  and  one  who  is  not  named,  whom 
we  may  call  X.  A  cursory  examination  of  Gen- 
esis shows  that  the  Redactor  is  supposed  to  have 
embodied  65  paragraphs  from  P,  137  paragraphs 
from  J,  90  paragraphs  from  E,  5  paragraphs  from 
]\  6  paragraphs  from  JE,  one  entire  chapter  from 
X,  and  that  105  paragraphs  have  been  inserted 
by  himself,  to  say  nothing  of  twenty  glosses. 
This  makes  409  pieces  in  a  book  covering  thirty- 
seven  pages  in  an  Oxford  Bible  ;  and  these  pieces 
vary  all  the  way  from  a  single  word  and  half  a 
line,  to  paragraphs  and  entire  chapters.  The 
result  may  be  judged  by  analyzing  the  story  of 
Joseph,  as  given  in  the  thirty-seventh  chapter. 
It  contains  127  lines.  The  critics  assign  it  to  five 
different  hands,  and  they  distribute  the  parts  as 
follows,  beginning  with  the  first  line  : 

Three  lines  from  P,  3  lines  from  JE,  2}4  lines  gloss,  i^  lines  from 
E,  7  lines  from  J,  i  J^  lines  from  E,  i  line  from  R,  9  lines  from  E,  2 
lines  from  R,  4%  lines  from  E,  i  line  from  R,  6%  lines  from  E,  23 
lines  from  JE,  6  lines  from  E,  i  word  from  R,  2  lines  from  J,  5 
lines  from  E,  2^^  lines  from  JE,  i  line  from  J,  3^  lines  from  JE,  i 


CRITICISM   AND   THE  OLD   TESTAMENT.     1 29 

line  from  J,  2,14  lines  from  JE,  11  lines  from  J,  2  lines  from  E,  2 
lines  from  J,  8%  lines  from  E,  6^  lines  from  J,  3  lines  from  E,  5 
lines  from  J,  2%  lines  from  E. 

Was  there  ever  such  a  literary  patch  quilt  ? 
Thirty  pieces  dovetailed  together  in  a  chapter  of 
thirty-six  verses,  and  in  a  story  which  constitutes 
a  plain  continuous  narrative  ?  The  miracle  of 
Jonah  and  the  fish  sinks  into  insignificance  before 
such  a  literary  performance.  "  Credat  Jicdcsus 
Apella  !  ' '  which  being  interpreted  means  ' '  Tell 
it  to  the  inari7ies  I ' ' 

The  critics  contend  that  the  sixth,  seventh, 
eighth,  and  ninth  chapters  of  Genesis  contain  two 
originally  separate  and  independent  versions  of 
the  flood,  and  in  the  analysis  they  claim  to  have 
reached  substantial  unanimity.  Four  authors 
have  been  detedled — ^J',  J,  P  and  R — whose  work 
appears  in  42  pieces.  In  this  secflion  of  Genesis 
there  are  328  lines,  and  they  are  distributed  as 
follows  : 

Fifteen  and  one-half  lines  from  Ji,  8^  lines  from  J,  i|!^  lines 
from  R,  2  Yi  lines  from  J,  46  lines  from  P,  8^  lines  from  J,  3  words 
from  R,  6J^  lines  from  J,  2  lines  from  P,  6J^  lines  from  J,  6  words 
from  R,  5  words  from  J,3  words  from  R,  i  word  from  J,  i  word  from 
R,  3  lines  from  J,  5^^  lines  from  P,  2  lines  from  J,  14  lines  from  P, 
6  words  from  T.  4  words  from  P,  2  words  from  R,  3  words  from  P,  2 


130  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

lines  from  J,  13  lines  from  P,  414  lines  from  J,  3  lines  from  R,  2 
lines  from  J,  8^A  lines  from  P,  2^  lines  from  J,  8%  lines  from  P,  2% 
lines  from  J,  8%  lines  from  P,  22  lines  from  J,  3^  lines  from  P,  2% 
lines  from  J,  18  lines  from  P,  13^  lines  from  J,  56  lines  from  P,  6 
lines  from  R,  4  lines  from  J',  3  words  from  R,  20  lines  from  Ji,  4 
lines  from  P. 

Now  it  may  be  that  the  mysterious  Reda(5lor 
used  his  scissors  and  pot  of  paste  in  this  most  in- 
genious and  amazing  fashion  ;  but  honestly,  I 
don't  beheve  one  word  of  it. 

At  whatever  point  the  examination  is  made, 
the  result  is  the  same.  Single  sentences  are  dis- 
tributed among  two  and  three  writers,  combined 
by  the  Redadlor,  and  paragraphs  are  broken  into 
fragments.  Thus,  in  the  account  of  the  plagues, 
recorded  in  Exodus  viii  :  8 — xi  :  lo,  covering 
440  lines,  the  critical  partition  of  Wellhausen 
yields  the  following  result : 

22  lines  from  P,  15  lines  from  J,  4  lines  from  K,  4  lines  from  J,  11 
lines  from  P,  17  lines  from  P),  9  lines  from  P,  3  lines  from  E,  18 
lines  from  J,  11  lines  from  P,  29  lines  from  J,  20  lines  from  P,  36 
lines  from  J,  15  lines  from  E,  34  lines  from  J,  35  lines  from'E,  52 
lines  from  J,  10  lines  from  E,  2  lines  from  J,  3  lines  from  E,  2  lines 
from  J,  7  lines  from  E,  14  lines  from  J,  29  lines  from  E,  6  lines 
from  J,  15  lines  from  E,  23  lines  from  J. 

This  makes  27  pieces,  varying  all  the  way 
from  2  lines  to  52  lines,  dovetailed  together  by 


I 
I 


1 


CRITICISM   AND  THK  OLD   TESTAMENT.     13I 

the  Reda(5lor.  Dillmann  makes  no  less  than  52 
pieces,  and  Julicher  detects  50  ;  while  both  add 
one  to  the  number  of  the  contributors  to  whom 
Wellhausen  assigns  the  accounts  ;  Wellhausen 
being  content  with  three,  w^hilejtilicher  and  Dill- 
mann require  four.  Thus  vanishes  the  boasted 
unanimity  of  the  critics,  when  they  come  to  apply 
their  principles  of  literary  partition. 

Even  if  we  confine  attention  to  the  first  and 
second  chapters  of  Genesis,  from  which  Astruc 
drew  the  hypothesis  of  two  documents,  the  im- 
probability of  the  theor3^  seems  to  me  apparent. 
Here  the  first  chapter  is  assigned  without  a  break 
to  P,  who  is  now  located  at  the  time  of  the  Exile, 
though  until  twenty-five  years  ago  this  chapter 
was  assigned  to  the  Elohist,  who  was  regarded 
as  the  oldest  of  the  writers.  The  hand  of  P  is 
traced  into  the  second  chapter,  as  far  as  the  mid- 
dle of  the  fourth  verse,  when  the  narrative  of  J 
is  supposed  to  begin,  and  to  continue  through 
the  remaining  part  of  the  chapter.  Not  uninter- 
ruptedly, however.  There  is  a  break  at  the  tenth 
verse,  when  the  Redadlor  inserts  five  verses,  or 
133/3  lines.     Nor  is  that  all.     The  Reda(5lor  has 


132  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

amended  J  in  thirteen  places,  by  inserting  the 
word  God  after  the  word  Lord,  for  the  phrase  is 
^'  the  Lord  God,''  which,  according  to  the  pres- 
ent theory,  the  Jahvist  could  not  have  written. 
He  wrote  only  Lord  or  Jehovah,  and  Elohim  or 
God  was  added  by  the  Reda(5lor,  to  whom  the 
latter  word  was  more  familiar,  as  Jehovah  in  his 
day  was  no  longer  in  ordinary  use.  He  might 
quite  as  easily  have  erased  Lord  and  substituted 
God  while  he  was  taking  liberties  with  his  text, 
but  had  he  done  so  the  critics  would  have  been 
compelled  to  assign  the  second  chapter  to  the 
same  writer  as  the  first  ;  and  it  may  be  that  in 
this  he  was  unconsciously  guided  by  divine  in- 
spiration, in  order  that  the  literary  critics  of  the 
nineteenth  century  might  have  the  opportunity 
to  exercise  and  exhibit  their  penetration  ! 

THEISTIC    EVOLUTION. 

We  are  asked  to  believe  in  a  theistic  evolution, 
in  which  God  permits  the  race,  through  nearly 
three  thousand  years,  to  regard  as  a  true  and 
authentic  record  what  he  finally  enables  men  to 
see  is  a  mass  of  fables,  forgeries,  and  deliberate 


CRITICISM   AND   the:   OLD   TKSTAMKNT,     1 33 

inventions.  For  myself,  I  could  not  trust  in  a 
God  who  made  use  of  such  a  method  of  revelation. 
It  may  be  all  true,  what  the  critics  say  ;  but 
honestly,  I  don't  believe  a  word  of  all  this  rub- 
bish. On  the  face  of  it,  it  is  simply  incredible  that 
Genesis  was  put  together  as  the  critics  claim .  I  be- 
lieve in  free  discussion.  But  I  also  protest  against 
what  Professor  Sayce  has  well  called  the  papacy  of 
the  modern  critical  school.  We  are  browbeaten  by 
being  told  that  the  consensus  of  scholarship  has 
settled  this  matter.  I  deny  that  there  is  such  con- 
sensus, and  if  there  were,  it  would  not  be  the  first 
time  that  truth  has  been  in  the  minority.  I  call 
for  the  fadls.  I  do  not  care  for  names.  What  is 
needed  is  a  good  deal  more  of  quiet,  independent 
investigation,  and  a  good  deal  less  of  toadying  to 
a  few  reckless  leaders.  I  can  only  say  for  myself, 
that  the  oftener  I  have  reviewed  the  fa(fts  and  the 
logic,  and  the  more  carefully  I  have  sifted  the 
evidence,  the  more  convinced  I  become  that  the 
old  fable  of  the  mountain  and  the  mouse  is  repeat- 
ing itself  in  the  herculean  labors  of  modern 
criticism. 


134  ^'^^  TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRE. 

NON-OBSERVANCE    OF    A    LAW. 

I  will  refer  to  only  one  more  critical  assump- 
tion, which  must  be  sharply  challenged.  It  is 
that  the  non-observance  of  a  law  is  evidence  of  its 
ignorance  by  the  people,  and  of  its  non-existence. 
The  historical  books,  we  are  told,  show  that  there 
was  no  central  and  exclusive  sancfluary,  but  that 
sacrifices  were  freely  and  frequently  offered  in 
many  places.  Deuteronomy  and  the  Levitical 
Code  plainly  forbid  this.  Therefore,  it  is  argued, 
Kxodus,  I^eviticus,  Numbers  and  Deuteronomy 
could  not  have  been  written  until  many  centuries 
after  Moses.  Of  course,  the  testimony  of  Chron- 
icles is  thrown  out  of  court,  on  the  ground  that 
it  is  a  late  compilation.  The  major  premise  of 
the  argument  is,  that  general  violation  of  a  law 
proves  its  non-existence.  I  asked  a  prominent 
lawyer  of  my  acquaintance,  what  he  thought  of 
that  logic.  "Why,"  he  answered,  "  that  is  un- 
mitigated nonsense."  For,  as  he  intimated, 
there  might  be  such  a  conspiracy  against  law,  on 
the  part  of  public  officials  and  judges,  as  to  make 
it  a  dead  letter,  and  in  a  generation  the  statute 
might  not  be  so  much  as  referred  to  or  quoted. 


CRITICISM   AND   THK   OLD   TESTAMENT.     1 35 

Some  time  after  this  conversation,  I  came  across 
a  quotation  from  Sir  J.  Stephen's  ledlures  on  the 
"  History  of  France,"  to  which  Professor  Zenos, 
of  Chicago,  had  called  the  attention  of  Professor 
Green,  of  Princeton,  singularly  confirming  this 
judgment  by  the  acftual  oblivion  of  an  entire  code 
of  laws.  The  quotation  is  as  follows  :  '*  When 
the  barbarism  of  the  domestic  government  (under 
the  Carlo vingian  dynasty)  had  thus  succeeded 
the  barbarism  of  the  government  of  the  State, 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  results  of  that  politi- 
cal change  was  the  disappearance  of  the  laws  and 
institutions  by  which  Charlemagne  had  endeav- 
ored to  elevate  and  civilize  his  subjecfts.  Before 
the  close  of  the  century  in  which  he  died  the 
whole  body  of  his  laws  had  fallen  into  -utter  dis- 
use throughout  the  whole  extent  of  his  Gallic 
dominions.  They  who  have  studied  the  charters, 
laws  and  chronicles  of  the  later  Carlovingian 
princes  most  diligently,  are  unanimous  in  declar- 
ing that  they  indicate  either  an  absolute  ignorance 
or  an  entire  forgetfulness  of  the  legislation  of 
Charlemagne. ' ' 

If  this  adlually  happened  after  the  death  of 


136  OLD   TKSTxVMENV  UNDKR   FIRK. 

Charlemagne,  why  was  it  impossible  after  the 
death  of  Moses?  Now,  the  record  shows  that 
this  is  just  what  did  take  place  in  the  centuries 
after  Moses.  The  history  constantly  affirms  that 
Israel  was  unfaithful,  and  that  sacrifice  on  the 
high  places  was  an  unauthorized  innovation.  But 
rulers  and  priests  encouraged  it,  and  the  old  law 
fell  into  disuse  and  oblivion,  until  in  the  reforma- 
tion under  Josiah  the  authority  of  the  negledled 
and  forgotten  law  was  reinstated.  That  is  a  per- 
fedlly  simple  and  straightforward  account.  Hil- 
kiah's  discovery  of  the  roll  of  the  law  was  an 
event  like  Luther's  dragging  the  New  Testament 
to  light.  Even  priests  had  ceased  to  read  it,  and 
the  people  knew  nothing  of  its  contents.  If  we 
are  to  conclude  that  the  non-observance  of  a  law 
is  evidence  of  its  non-existence,  then  we  must 
conclude  that  the  Ten  Commandments  and  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  are  not  in  existence  now. 
The  truth  is  that  the  historical  and  prophetic 
books  constantly  assume  that  the  Israelites  were 
flagrantly  disobedient,  and  were  sorely  punished 
for  their  disobedience.  They  had  the  law,  but 
they  kept  it  not,  and  the  priests  were  at  the  feet 


CRITICISM   AND  THK  OI.D   TESTAMENT.     1 37 

of  the  wicked  kings.  Israel  had  its  dark  ages, 
as  the  Christian  Church  has  had.  In  Josiah's 
time  came  the  great  reformation  and  return,  for 
which  the  great  prophets  had  prepared  the  way  ; 
and,  after  the  Babylonian  captivity,  with  its  hu- 
miliating and  painful  experiences,  Ezra  and  his 
associates  gave  to  the  reformation  and  return 
their  final  and  permanent  form.  The  next  step 
was  the  advent  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  Him  the  old 
passed  forever  away,  and  the  new  appeared  upon 
the  scene.  With  Him  we  begin.  And  in  His 
hands  we  find  the  same  Old  Testament,  in  which 
He  assures  us  that  the  w^ay  of  eternal  life  is 
clearly  revealed,  and  of  which  He  exhorts  us  to 
make  diligent  use.  From  its  ceremonial  pen- 
ances and  sacrifices  He  has  delivered  us,  by  the 
sacrifice  of  Himself  upon  the  Cross.  He  has 
abolished  the  law  of  ordinances.  From  the  yoke 
of  a  human  priesthood  He  has  freed  us,  because 
He  is  the  eternal  High  Priest  of  our  glorious 
redemption.  But  there  remain  the  record  of 
God's  dealings  with  the  men  of  ancient  times, 
and  the  psalms  of  the  ancient  Church,  and  the 
stirring  prophecies  of  bygone  centuries,  which, 


138  OI.D  TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRK. 

as  Isaac  Taylor  has  said,  have  been  the  drum-beat 
to  which  modem  progress  marches.  They  are 
old,  but  they  are  not  antiquated.  They  are  gran- 
aries of  bread  and  wells  of  salvation.  Let  us  eat 
and  drink,  and  give  thanks  to  God  for  His  royal 
bounty. 

REVELATION    BY    DEEDS. 

Not  words,  but  deeds,  constitute  the  most  im- 
pressive revelation  of  God.  He  speaks  to  men 
through  history.  He  came  by  Jesus  Christ.  And 
the  Incarnation  was  only  the  crown  of  an  un- 
broken historic  revelation.  Not  in  legal  codes  and 
in  ritual  ordinances  are  we  to  search  for  the  secret 
and  vital  principle  of  God's  self-revelation,  but  in 
the  historical  events  in  which  they  are  imbedded, 
and  which  make  them  radiant  with  eternal  mean- 
ing. The  codes  do  not  touch  our  life.  We  may 
ignore  them.  The  history  which  underlies  and 
overlaps  the  codes,  has  not  spent  its  force.  We 
cannot  ignore  it.  We  cannot  afford  to  lose  it. 
The  whole  patriarchal  history,  and  the  discipline 
of  Israel,  are  luminous  with  warning  and  en- 
couragement. We  are  enriched  by  the  narrativ^es 
of  Abraham,  and  Joseph,  and  Moses,  and  Joshua, 


CRI'TICISM   AND   THK   OI.D   TKSTAMKNT.     1 39 

and  the  Judges,  and  the  Kings,  loyal  and  rebel- 
lious. There  are  no  better  stories  for  our  chil- 
dren. There  are  no  more  impressive  narratives 
for  the  oldest.  They  constitute  an  invaluable 
primer  of  morality  and  religion.  They  were  written 
and  preserved  for  our  admonition.  They  are  not 
cunningly  devised  fables.  And  simply  in  the 
interest  of  fair  treatment,  we  protest  against  their 
wholesale  slaughter  upon  such  wild  assumptions 
as  have  been  passed  under  rapid  review. 

FREE    DISCUSSION. 

It  has  become  the  fashion,  in  critical  quarters, 
to  sneer  at  Professor  Green,  of  Princeton.  It  will 
do  him  no  harm.  He  certainly  has  no  disposition 
to  padlock  free  thought  and  free  speech.  It  is 
only  a  fool  who  sits  down  on  the  safety  valve. 
Professor  Green  is  on  record  as  saying  that 
' '  every  attempt  to  interfere  with  freedom  of  in- 
quiry on  this  subject  should  be  frowned  down 
from  whatever  quarter  it  may  proceed  or  by 
whatever  obje(5l  it  may  be'acfluated — and  vigor- 
ous threshing  w411  free  the  pure  grain  from  the 
worthless  chaff."     If  that  be  uncharitable  nar- 


140  OLD   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRK. 

rowness,  then  I  want  my  name  added  to  the  list 
of  its  vidlims.  If  men  will  persist  in  emptying 
their  wagon  loads  of  criticism  upon  the  public 
threshing  floor,  I  shall  not  denounce  them,  nor 
will  I  run  away  in  holy  horror,  but  I  will  seize 
my  flail  and  beat  away  until  straw  and  grain  fly 
apart  in  clouds  of  whirling  dust.  That  is  true 
charity.  That  I  understand  to  be  the  demand 
of  Christian  friendship.  And  the  fearless  attitude 
of  Professor  Green,  to  which  I  have  alluded, 
recalls  a  similar  manly  challenge  from  the  lips  of 
the  late  Dr.  Van  Dyke,  of  Brooklyn,  most  con- 
servative of  theologians,  when,  shortly  before  his 
death,  his  voice  rang  out  in  this  magnificent 
fashion  :  "  If  we  must  choose  between  orthodoxy 
and  liberty,  we  will  hold  fast  to  liberty  and  let 
orthodoxy  go  !  "  That  was  said  when  the  criti- 
cal debate  was  convulsing  the  Presbyterian 
Church.  It  startled  not  a  few.  I  thought  that  I 
understood  him,  and  I  did.  I  interpreted  him  as 
meaning  that  orthodoxy  had  nothing  to  fear  from 
the  freest  and  the  most  searching  discussion,  that 
liberty  was  the  mother  of  orthodoxy  and  its  per- 
petual safety.     And  when  I  wrote  him,  asking 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.     141 

whether  I  had  caught  his  meaning,  back  came 
the  reply  by  the  very  next  mail,  "That  is  ex- 
acftly  what  I  had  in  mind,  and  what  I  believe." 

Nobod}^  will  be  privately  or  publicly  admon- 
ished to  keep  still.  Congregationalism,  at  least, 
has  no  use  for  such  ecclesiastical  machinery. 
Nobody  will  be  denounced  for  saying  what  he 
believes.  But  every  man  will  be  held  responsi- 
ble for  his  utterances,  and  if  these  utterances  defy 
both  fa(?t  and  logic,  the  exposure  will  be  made 
without  recourse  to  apology.  In  all  this  there  is 
no  bitterness,  as  there  is  no  persecution.  It  is 
simply  the  protest  of  manly,  intelligent  convic- 
tion. The  critics  must  expecft  vigorous  hand- 
ling. Free  speech  is  not  their  monopoly.  It  is 
the  divine  birthright  of  every  man.  Truth  has 
no  personal  controversy  with  any  man.  But 
arbitrary  assumptions,  and  imaginary  fa(5ls,  and 
vicious  methods,  and  wholesale  charges  of  fraudu- 
lent handling,  which,  as  wehavCvSeen,  are  common 
with  the  advocates  of  radical  and  revolutionary 
criticism,  cannot  be  permitted  to  go  unchallenged, 
and  in  such  a  debate  plain  speech  is  the  best. 
I  have  not   said  a  tithe  of  what  misrht  be  said. 


142  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE.      • 

But  I  have  said  enough  to  prove  my  main  conten- 
tion true,  that  the  new  critics  have  utterly  failed 
to  make  out  their  case,  and  that  to  surrender  to 
them  at  this  jundlure  would  be  the  height  of 
criminal  cowardice. 

When,  thirty  years  ago,  I  entered  the  min- 
istry, the  crisis  of  the  destructive  criticism  on 
the  New  Testament  had  only  just  passed.  We 
were  in  the  restless  waters  produced  by  the 
exhaustion  of  a  terrific  storm,  and  that,  as 
some  of  us  know,  is  worse  than  the  tempest. 
The  cyclone  was  over,  but  it  had  cut  a  terrible 
swath,  and  the  desolation  seemed  hopeless,  I 
have  lived  to  see  the  school  of  Baur  and  Renan 
buried  out  of  sight,  and  the  New  Testament 
intrenched  more  strongly  than  ever.  The  school 
of  Wellhausen  is  only  nineteen  years  old.  If  I 
live  twenty  years  longer,  I  .shall  expert  to  see  it 
laid  out  for  solitary  burial,  with  none  to  mourn 
over  its  departure.  The  archaeologists  are 
already  in  open  revolt.  Recent  publications  in 
Holland  and  Germany  show  that  scholarship 
refuses  to  be  silenced  by  clamor.  The  threshing 
will  go  on,  and  it  needs  no  prophet's  eye  to  see 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD   TESTAMENT.     1 43 

that  the  revolutionary  principles  upon  which  the 
destrucftive  criticism  has  been  con dudled,  will  be 
thoroughly  discredited,  and  the  house  built  upon 
the  sand  will  collapse.  Meanwhile,  in  perfedl 
serenity  of  mind,  let  us  follow  Jesus  Christ,  who 
grew  in  favor  with  God  and  man,  through  rever- 
ent familiarity  with  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
Testament ! 

NOAH    WEBSTER    AND    THE    BIBLE. 

In  this  connedlion,  and  as  a  fitting  ending  to 
what  has  been  said,  let  me  insert  a  paragraph 
from  the  introdudlion  to  Webster's  Di(5lionary, 
written  in  1847,  four  years  after  his  death.  Even 
as  early  as  his  day,  educated  men  were  acquainted 
with  the  criticisms  calling  in  question  the  integrity 
and  inspiration  of  the  Scriptures.  Kwald  was  his 
contemporary.  German  criticism  had  eager  and 
enthusiastic  disciples  in  New  England.  Theodore 
Parker  had  popularized  its  docflrines  in  the  early 
part  of  the  present  century.  Noah  Webster  lived 
in  a  university  town,  where  Timothy  D wight  in 
his  own  day  was  doing  valiant  service  in  behalf 
of  evangelical  religion.     The  account  proceeds  as 


144  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

follows:  "  In  respedl  of  religion  Dr.  Webster  was 
a  firm  believer  during  a  large  part  of  his  life  in 
the  great  distindlive  dodlrines  of  our  Puritan 
ancestors,  whose  characfter  he  always  regarded 
with  the  highest  veneration.  There  was  a  period, 
however,  from  the  time  of  his  leaving  college  to 
the  age  of  forty,  that  is,  between  1778  and  1798, 
when  he  had  doubts  as  to  some  of  those  doclrines, 
and  rested  in  a  different  system.  Soon  after  he 
graduated,  being  uncertain  what  business  to 
attempt,  or  by  what  means  he  could  obtain  sub- 
sistence, he  felt  his  mind  greatly  perplexed  and 
almost  overwhelmed  with  gloomy  apprehensions. 
In  this  state,  as  he  afterwards  informed  a  friend, 
he  read  Johnson's  '  Rambler  '  with  unusual  inter- 
est, and  in  closing  the  last  volume,  he  made  a 
firm  resolution  to  pursue  a  course  of  virtue 
through  life,  and  to  perform  every  moral  and 
social  duty  with  scrupulous  exadlness.  To  this 
he  added  a  settled  belief  in  the  inspiration  of  the 
Scriptures  and  the  governing  providence  of  God, 
connedled  with  highly  reverential  views  of  the 
divine  charadler  and  perfedlions.  Here  he  rested, 
placing  his  chief  reliance  for  salvation  on  a  faith- 


CRITICISM   AND   THB  OLD   TESTAMENT.     1 45 

ful  discharge  of  all  the  relative  duties  of  life, 
though  not  to  the  entire  exclusion  of  dependence 
on  the  merits  of  the  Redeemer.  In  this  state  of 
mind  he  remained,  though  with  some  misgiving 
and  frequent  flucftuations  of  feelings,  to  the  winter 
of  1807-8.  At  that  time  there  was  a  season  of 
general  revival  interest  at  New  Haven,  under  the 
ministry  of  Rev.  Moses  Stuart.  To  this  Dr. 
Webster's  attention  was  first  direcfted  by  observing 
an  unusual  degree  of  tenderness  and  solemnity  of 
feeling  in  all  the  adult  members  of  his  family. 
He  was  thus  led  to  reconsider  his  former  views, 
and  inquire,  with  an  earnestness  which  he  had 
never  felt  before,  into  the  nature  of  personal 
religion,  and  the  true  ground  of  man's  acceptance 
with  God.  He  had  now  to  decide  not  for  him- 
self only,  but,  to  a  certain  extent,  for  others, 
whose  spiritual  interests  were  committed  to  his 
charge.  Under  a  sense  of  this  responsibility  he 
took  up  the  study  of  the  Bible  with  painful  solici- 
tude. As  he  advanced,  the  objedlions  which  he 
had  formerly  entertained  against  the  humbling 
dodlrines  of  the  Gospel  were  wholly  removed. 
He  felt  their  truth  in  his  own  experience.     He- 


146  OI,D  TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRE. 

felt  that  salvation  must  be  wholly  of  grace.  He 
felt  constrained,  as  he  afterwards  told  a  friend,  to 
cast  himself  down  before  God,  confess  his  sins, 
implore  pardon  through  the  merits  of  the  Re- 
deemer, and  then  to  make  his  vows  of  entire 
obedience  and  devotion  to  the  service  of  his  Maker. 
With  his  characteristic  promptitude  he  instantly 
made  known  to  his  family  the  feelings  which  he 
entertained.  He  called  them  together  the  next 
morning,  and  told  them,  with  deep  emotion,  that, 
while  he  had  aimed  at  the  faithful  discharge  of 
all  his  duties  as  their  parent  and  head,  he  had 
neglec5led  one  of  the  most  important  —  that  of 
family  prayer.  After  reading  the  Scriptures,  he 
led  them,  with  deep  solemnity,  to  the  throne  of 
grace,  and  from  that  time  continued  the  pradlise, 
with  the  liveliest  interest,  to  the  period  of  his 
death.  He  made  a  public  profession  of  religion 
in  April,  1808.  His  two  oldest  daughters  united 
with  him  in  the  acft,  and  another,  only  twelve 
years  of  age,  was  soon  added  to  the  number. ' ' 

There  was  nothing  sensational  in  that  conver- 
sion. The  man  was  fifty  years  old.  He  lived  to 
be  eighty-five,  and  when  he  was  dying,  he  said  : 


CRITICISM   AND   THE   OLD  TESTAMENT.     1 47 

"  I  know  whom  I  have  believed.  I  know  whom 
I  have  believed,  and  that  He  is  able  to  keep  that 
which  I  have  committed  to  Him  against  that 
day."  Noah  Webster  found  Jesus  Christ  in  his 
Bible.  That  made  an  end  of  his  darkness  and 
doubt.  That  gave  him  serenity  and  confidence. 
That  is  the  vision  we  need,  and  when  we  have  it, 
the  peace  of  God  will  keep  our  minds  and  hearts. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Criticism  and  Common  Sense. 

"Prove  all  things ;  hold  fast  that  which 

is  good." 

—1  Thess.  v.  :  21. 

It  is  not  easy  to  handle  the  problems  of  mod- 
ern criticism  in  popular  discourse.  There  are 
not  a  few  critics  who  deprecate  the  introduction 
of  such  things  into  the  columns  of  the  .secular 
and  religious  press,  and  into  the  pulpit.  Their 
minute  and  thorough  discussion  demands  an 
equipment  and  training  which  are  wholly  foreign 
to  our  congregations,  and  of  which  even  the  large 
majority  of  our  pastors  are  destitute.  The  rank 
and  file  of  the  Christian  ministry  shrink  from 
the  debate,  vSimply  because  of  their  conscious  lack 
of  equipment.  I  respe(5l  the  hesitation,  but  I 
have  no  patience  with  the  lack  of  equipment 
which  necessitates  it.  For  the  lack  is  due  to 
the  criminal  negledl  of  the  study  of  the  Old 
Testament  in  the  original  Hebrew,  and  there  is 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSK.  1 49 

no  good  reason  why  men  who  have  received  the 
advantages  of  the  full  course  of  study  in  our 
theological  seminaries,  should  not  be  as  much  at 
home  in  the  Hebrew,  as  they  are  in  the  Greek 
The  Greek  is  vastly  more  difficult  than  the  He- 
brew. Technical  scholarship,  in  neither  Greek 
nor  Hebrew,  is  necessary  to  equip  a  man  for  in- 
dependent j  udgment  upon  critical  questions.  And 
the  present  state  of  things  demands  nothing  more 
emphatically  than  that  pastors  take  down  their 
dust-covered  Hebrew  Bibles,  and  gird  themselves 
for  familiarity  with  the  tongue,  whose  alphabet 
and  declensions  and  conjugations  many  of  them 
have  forgotten.  They  would  lose  nothing  and 
gain  much,  if  they  would  sacrifice  for  five  3^ ears 
the  reading  of  newspapers  and  magazines,  until 
Hebrew  ceased  to  be  a  mystery. 

THE    IRREPRESSIBLE     CONFLICT. 

For  the  universities  and  the  theological  semina- 
ries have  not  been  able  to  execute  the  decree  of  si- 
lence. Few  men  care  what  the  critics  may  say 
about  the  Iliad  and  Homer,  or  the  integrity  of 
Cicero's  orations.     Millions  care  for  what  they 


150  OI.D   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

say  about  Moses  and  the  prophets,  and  the  books 
which  are  attributed  to  them.  The  pulpits  and 
the  press  are  interested  in  what  is  whispered  in 
the  university  quadrangles.  The  debate  has  as- 
sumed a  popular  form,  and  it  is  utterly  useless  to 
put  on  sackcloth  and  ashes.  The  only  thing  to 
do  is  to  meet  the  new  prophets  upon  their  own 
ground,  and  to  make  it  clear  that  they  are  at  sea 
about  their  facts,  and  that  their  logic  is  utterly 
vicious.  The  defenders  of  the  literary  integrity 
of  the  Old  Testament  have  not  thrust  the  matter 
upon  the  attention  of  the  public.  They  have  not 
been  eager  for  the  fray,  because  they  believe  that 
other  and  better  work  can  be  done,  and  needs  to 
be  done.  But  when  Sumter  was  fired  upon,  the 
nation  responded  to  the  call  of  Father  Abraham  ; 
and  when  once  the  musket  was  shouldered,  we 
did  not  stop  until  the  confederacy  had  collapsed. 
And  when  the  historical  credibility  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  assailed,  under  the  plea  of  giving 
us  a  better  Bible,  we  do  not  propose  to  turn  the 
other  cheek,  but  to  strip  for  the  fight,  and  answer 
thrust  for  thrust,  saber  stroke  for  saber  stroke. 
And  I  wish  to  say  again,  with  the  utmost  earn- 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SENSEj.  15! 

estness  and  emphasis,  that  in  my  stridlures, 
which  I  mean  to  make  as  sharp  and  severe  as 
language  permits,  I  shall  wholly  ignore  the  per- 
sonal aspects  of  the  controversy,  shall  avoid  all 
side  issues,  and  confine  myself  stri6lly  to  the  fun- 
damental doctrines  which  the  acknowledged 
leaders  of  the  new  school  have  propounded,  in 
their  treatment  of  the  documents  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament. I  am  cutting  deeper  down  than  any 
man's  qualified  utterances  and  conditional  exposi- 
tions ;  I  am  trying  to  lay  bare  the  foundation- 
stones  upon  which  the  critical  strucfture  rests.  I 
am  laying  the  ax  at  the  root  of  this  poisonous 
tree,  leaving  the  branches  to  wither  of  them- 
selves. 

It  may  be  well  to  state  what  things  are  not 
under  debate.  There  is  a  definite  challenge  ; 
and  no  amount  of  dust  should  be  allowed  to  veil 
it.  There  are  several  things  which  must  be 
eliminated  from  the  present  discussion. 

THINGS     THAT    MUST    BE    ELIMINATED    FROM 
BIBLICAL    DISCUSSION. 

I .  One  is  the  nature,  the  method,  and  the  design 
of  inspiration.     That  is  a  theological,  not  a  critic 


152  OI.D  TKSTAMKNT  UNDKR   I^IRK. 

cal,  problem ;  and  I,  for  one,  refuse  at  this  junc- 
ture to  so  much  as  touch  it. 

2.  A  second  concerns  the  interpretation  of  an}- 
given  book  in  either  the  Old  Testament  or  the 
New.  I  do  not  care  what  any  man  regards  as 
the  meaning  of  Job  or  Jonah,  of  Ecclesiastes  or 
the  Song  of  Solomon.  The  more  fundamental 
question  is,  whether  any  of  the  Old  Testament 
books  are  worth  reading  at  all.  For  if  they  are 
mainly  ficftitious,  if  they  are  in  the  main  literary 
inventions  and  forgeries,  it  makes  no  difference 
what  they  mean. 

3.  A  third  question  of  subordinate  importance 
is  that  of  the  authorship  and  date  of  the  Old  Test- 
ament books.  Many  of  them  are  confessedly 
anonymous.  How  many  psalms  David  wrote  is 
a  question  of  little  consequence.  Whether  Ruth 
is  early  or  late  is  not  a  matter  of  vital  importance. 

4.  A  fourth  matter  of  secondary  importance  is 
the  problem  of  literary  stru6lure ;  whether  the 
documents  are  composite  or  not ;  whether  certain 
passages  are  prose  or  poetry  ;  whether  certain 
books  are  narrative  or  drama  or  parable.  Whether 
the  Song  of  Solomon  is  an  allegorical  prophecy  or 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSK.  1 53 

a  love  song  ;  whether  Job  is  a  narrative  or  a 
drama  ;  whether  Jonah  is  history  or  parable ; 
whether  the  first  three  chapters  of  Genesis  are 
poetic  and  pictorial  in  form,  or  are  to  be  read  as 
literal  prose  ;  these,  and  a  hundred  questions  like 
them,  are  matters  of  comparative  indifference. 

5.  The  one  and  only  question  is  simply  this, 
whether  the  Pentateuch  and  the  other  Old  Testa- 
ment books  give  us  a  true  account  of  the  times 
with  which  they  deal,  or  whether  they  are  a  tissue 
of  legendary  tales,  of  literary  inventions,  of  dis- 
honest manipulation  of  fa(5ls,  of  deliberate  and 
wicked  forgeries.  I  am  using  plain  English  ;  but 
that  is  what  the  criticism  of  Graf,  Kuenen,  and 
Wellhausen  amounts  to. 

HEINRICH    EWALD. 

Kwald's  name  is  so  frequently  mentioned  in 
current  discussions,  that  it  may  be  well  to  outline 
the  critical  position  of  the  famous  German.  He 
was  revolutionary  enough  in  his  day,  but  he  has 
become  a  back  number  with  the  modern  school ; 
though  it  is  a  good  thing  for  that  school  that 
Ewald  is  dead.     He  was  an  irascible  fellow,  and 


154  OI^D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

had  a  short,  sharp,  and  decisive  way  of  crushing 
his  opponents.  He  was  a  man  of  great  learning 
and  penetration  ;  and  his  great  history  of  Israel 
is  one  of  the  most  stimulating  and  stirring  books 
which  any  one  can  read,  if  he  has  the  patience  to 
go  through  its  eight  good-sized  volumes.  There 
is  one  feature  of  his  scholarship,  which  is 
somewhat  charadleristic  of  the  entire  school  of 
revolutionary  criticism,  and  that  is  the  frequent 
offensive  assumption  of  omniscience,  and  the 
summary  language  in  which  opponents  are  dealt 
with.  Kwald  refers  to  Ilgen  as  having  failed  in 
his  studies  of  the  subjedl,  speaks  of  the  labors  of 
Hupfeld  and  Knobel  as  * '  unsatisfactory  and  per- 
verse," and  declares  that  the  opinions  of  Heng- 
stenberg,  Delitzsch,  Keil  and  Kurtz,  ' '  stand  below 
and  outside  of  all  science."  "Stupidity"  is  a 
favorite  word  with  Kwald  to  designate  those  who 
venture  to  challenge  his  dicfta.  In  the  critical 
portions  of  his  work,  judgments  are  entered  for 
which  no  proof  whatever  is  given,  enforced  sim- 
ply by  his  personal  authorit}^,  of  which  he  per- 
mits neither  denial  nor  doubt.  Thus,  he  declares 
emphatically  that  writing  was  unknown   before 


CRITICISM    AND    COMMON    SKNSK.  1 55 

Moses,  and  upon  that  assumption  he  resolves  the 
entire  patriarchal  history  into  a  series  of  myths  or 
legends. 

ewald's  assumption  discpedited   by  recent 
discoveries. 

I  need  only  add  that  Kwald's  assumption  has 
been  thoroughly  and  forever  discredited,  by  the 
recent  discoveries  in  Egypt  and  Assyria,  and  with 
these  discoveries  the  entire  fabric  of  the  legend- 
ary charadler  of  the  narratives  in  Genesis  col- 
lapses. Among  other  surprising  corroborations,  is 
the  demonstration  that  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
Genesis  is  rigidly  historical,  the  record  of  an 
adlual  military  campaign  in  which  Abraham  was 
the  conspicuous  figure,  while  the  mysterious 
figure  of  Melchizedec  is  proved  to  be  that  of  a 
living  prince.  The  evidence  for  the  first  comes 
from  the  plains  of  iVssyria  ;  the  evidence  for  the 
second  comes  from  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  The 
critics  never  did  know  what  to  do  with  that  chap- 
ter. It  has  defied  all  analysis  and  disse(5lion.  It 
cannot  be  credited  to  K,  or  to  J,  or  to  P,  or  to  the 
Reda(5lor.  Even  Ewald  conceded  that  it  must  be 
pre- Mosaic.     But  he  treats  it  as  legendary.     The 


156  OI^D  TKSTAME^NT  UNDER   FIRK. 

critics  have  proved,  over  and  over  again,  to  their 
own  satisfa(5lion,  that  it  is  purely  fabulous.  This 
was  maintained  by  Noldeke  as  late  as  1869,  little 
more  than  twenty-five  years  ago.  To-day  as 
Professor  Brown  says,  "wise  exegetes  are  not 
doing  this.  There  is  too  much  light  out  of  the 
east.  The  sun  has  risen  too  high."  Bricks  have 
been  dug  up  out  of  the  mounds  of  Assyria,  which 
antedate  the  birth  of  Abraham.  And  among  them 
are  some  which  give  an  account  of  early  Baby- 
lonian invasions,  with  mention  of  Arioch,  Kllasar, 
and  Chederlaomer  by  name. 

It  is  only  ten  years  since  the  Tell-Amarna  tab- 
lets were  discovered,  between  Thebes  and  Mem- 
phis, by  an  Egyptian  peasant  woman.  These 
tablets  contain  official  letters  of  great  importance, 
and  they  belong  to  the  period  immediately  after 
the  Exodus,  during  which  Joshua  was  adlive  in 
the  conquest  of  Southern  Palestine.  These  tablets 
mention  the  Hebrews  as  invaders,  and  they  speak 
definitely  of  Jerusalem  and  of  its  king,  Ebed- 
Tob,  a  royal  priest,  whose  name  Major  Conder 
translates  as  Adonizedek,  the  equivalent  of  Mel- 
chizedec,  ' '  king  of  justice."     The  way  in  which 


CRITICISM   AND    COMMON  SKNSE.  1 57 

Ebed-Tob  speaks  of  his  right  to  the  throne  of 
Uru-'Salim  is  highly  interesting  and  suggestive  : 
"  Behold,  neither  my  father  nor  my  mother  have 
exalted  me  in  this  place  ;  the  arm  of  the  Mighty 
King  has  caused  me  to  enter  the  house  of  my 
father."  So  that  in  Joshua's  time  Jerusalem  was 
already  well  known,  and  its  king  was  a  royal 
priest. 

Thus  from  the  sands  of  the  Nile,  and  from  the 
mounds  of  Assyria,  rise  the  long  buried  bricks 
which  prove  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis, 
confidently  relegated  by  the  critics  to  the  realm 
of  legend,  to  be  simple,  straightforward  history. 
Down  goes  the  whole  legendary  fabric  at  a  touch, 
and  it  is  critically  certain  that  Abraham  is  no 
myth. 

The  critical  retreat  has  been  steady  and  sure. 
First,  the  pre-Solomonic  history  was  discredited, 
and  even  Moses  reduced  to  a  shadow  ;  then  a  halt 
was  made  at  Moses,  and  the  entire  patriarchal 
record  treated  as  unhistorical  ;  and  now  the  bricks 
have  compelled  a  further  retreat  to  Abraham.  It 
is  pertinent  at  this  point  to  quote  the  words  of  the 
eminent  orientalist,  Professor  Hommel  of  Munich; 


158  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

' '  The  genuineness  and  authenticity  of  an  account 
like  that  in  Genesis  xiv.  involves  a  sweeping  and 
destru(5live  criticism  of  the  now  fashionable  view 
as  to  the  trustworthiness  of  the  Old  Testament 
traditions,  and,  therefore,  this  chapter  will  ever  be 
a  stumbling  block  to  those  critics  who  wdll  not 
allow  a  single  line  to  be  Mosaic,  not  even  the 
Decalogue  and  the  so-called  Book  of  the  Cove- 
nant, and  accordingly  these  men  for  a  long  time 
to  come  will  bend  their  utmost  strength,  though 
with  little  success,  to  remove  this  stone  of  offense 
from  their  path."  Thus  history  plants  itself 
squarely  and  solidly  in  the  fourteenth  chapter  of 
Genesis,  and  if  in  this  chapter  the  author  of  Gen- 
esis has  not  drawn  upon  his  imagination,  but  has 
simply  discharged  the  duty  of  a  historian,  he 
may  fairly  be  believed  to  have  been  equally  honest 
and  conscientious  in  the  thirteen  preceding  chap- 
ters. This  conclusion  is  confirmed  by  the  singu- 
lar facft,  that  the  Assyrian  inscriptions  have  made 
it  certain  that  Nimrod  is  not  a  myth,  but  a  his- 
torical figure. 

ewald's   partition. 
But  to  return  to  Ewald's  critical  partition  of 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SENSK.  1 59 

the  Pentateuch,  or  of  the  Hexateuch,  as  it  is  now 
called.  He  discovered  eight  sources  and  names 
them  as  follows : 

1.  The  Book  of  the  Wars  of  Jahveh,  contain- 
ing brief  sketches  of  military  exploits  under 
Moses  and  Joshua,  composed  soon  after  Joshua's 
death. 

2.  The  Biography  of  Moses,  giving  the  main 
fa(5ls  in  the  life  of  the  great  lawgiver,  and  com- 
posed within  the  first  century  after  the  death  of 
Joshua. 

3.  The  Book  of  Covenants,  located  in  the  pe- 
riod of  Samson. 

4.  The  Book  of  Origins,  which  Kwald  makes 
to  include  the  Levitical  legislation,  which  he 
refers  to  Solomon's  time,  and  regards  as  embody- 
ing in  fixed  form  the  ritual  of  the  Tabernacle. 
This  book  excites  his  profound  admiration,  and 
he  concludes  its  study  in  these  words  : 

*  *  I^ofty  spirit  !  thou  whose  w^ork  has  for  centu- 
ries not  unnaturally  had  the  fortune  of  being 
taken  for  that  of  thy  great  hero,  Moses,  himself, 
I  know  not  thy  name  and  divine  only  from  thy 
vestiges  when  thou    didst   live   and  what   thou 


l6o  OI.D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

didst  achieve,  but  if  these  thy  traces  incontro- 
vertibly  forbid  me  to  identify  thee  with  him  who 
was  greater  than  thou,  and  whom  thou  thyself 
only  desiredst  to  magnify  according  to  his  des- 
erts, then  see  that  there  is  no  guile  in  me,  nor 
any  pleasure  in  knowing  thee  not  absolutely  as 
thou  wast."  Men  may,  if  they  choose,  call  that 
eloquence,  as  some  have  done  ;  I  call  it  unmiti- 
gated sentimental  bosh  and  bombast. 

5.  The  third  narrator,  belonging  to  Northern 
Palestine,  and  appearing  soon  after  the  Book  of 
Origins. 

6.  The  fourth  narrator,  belonging  to  Southern 
Palestine,  and  living  in  the  ninth  century,  B.  C. 

7.  The  fifth  narrator,  belonging  to  Southern 
Palestine,  and  living  in  the  eighth  century,  B.  C. 

8.  The  Deuteronomist,  located  in  the  middle 
part  of  the  seventh  century,  B.  C,  about  thirty 
years  before  Hilkiah's  discovery  of  the  Book  of 
the  Law,  which  Ewald  declares  was  written  by 
the  Deuteronomist  in  Egypt.  Kwald  declares 
that  the  phrase  by  which  the  book  is  described  is 
indefinite,  and  means  no  more  than  * '  a  law  book, ' ' 
but  every  tyro  in  Hebrew  knows  better,  and  the 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  S^NS:^.  l6l 

phrase  can  only  mean,  as  Strack  insists,  a  writing 
or  written  copy  of  the  I^aw;  that  is,  the  only, 
authoritative,  well-known  Law. 

These  are  certainly  amazing  discoveries.  Kwald 
may  be  right,  but  we  have  nothing  for  it  but  his 
word.  His  hypothesis  is  known  as  the  crystali- 
zation  theory.  His  idea  is,  that  the  literary  basis 
of  the  Hexateuch  is  the  first  document  men- 
tioned, which  the  second  writer  embodied,  recast 
and  enlarged,  the  third  following  in  the  steps  of 
his  predecessors,  until  the  Deuteronomist  com- 
pleted the  task.  There  are  different  layers  in  the 
literary  strudlure,  of  which  the  Book  of  Origins 
is  the  most  remarkable,  but  there  is  original 
literary  unity  in  the  final  result.  At  each  suc- 
cessive stage  the  preceding  narratives  were  vitally 
incorporated,  so  that  we  have  not  a  series  of 
scissored  fragments,  or  of  supplementary  addi- 
tions. Ewald  insists  that  criticism  must  recog- 
nize and  explain  the  unity  of  the  Pentateuch. 
And  upon  the  central  problem  of  modern  criti- 
cism, the  date  of  the  middle  books  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, the  document  now  called  P.,  or  the 
Priest-code,  which  is  declared  to  belong   to  the 


1 62  OIvD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

period  of  the  second  temple,  450  B.  C,  the  great 
authority  of  Kwald  comes  down  like  a  sledge 
hammer.  His  argument  is  massive  and  convin- 
cing, that  it  cannot  be  later  than  David  or  Solo- 
mon, that  it  is  the  I^aw  Book  of  the  first  temple, 
and  that  it  only  codified  and  made  fixed  the 
ritual  of  the  tabernacle,  which  the  temple  of 
Solomon  displaced. 

GENERAL    FEATURES   OF   THE    NEW    CRITICISM. 

Now,  while  I  cannot  enter  into  the  details  of 
the  current  discussion,  I  can  outline  its  main 
general  features ;  and  the  reader  can  judge  for 
himself  to  how  much  of  serious  confidence  the 
new  criticism  is  entitled.  There  are  five  affirma- 
tions upon  which  the  critics  proceed,  and  which 
they  embody  in  their  creed. 

I .  They  insist  upon  eliminating  all  miraculous 
elements  from  the  Pentateuch.  Very  well ;  then 
all  such  elements  must  be  cut  out  of  the  New 
Testament.  I  do  not  insist  that  a  man  shall  and 
must  believe  in  the  literalness  of  the  Jonah  story; 
I  do  insist  that  if  he  reje6ls  it  simply  because  it  is 
a  miracle,  he  has  no  good  reason  for  believing 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON   SKNSE.  1 63 

that  Jesus  Christ  was  born  of  a  virgin,  or  that  He 
rose  from  the  dead. 

2.  They  insist  upon  the  mythical  chara(5ler  of 
the  patriarchal  narratives.  As  I  have  already 
said,  the  curious  confirmation  of  the  historical 
characfter  of  the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Genesis, 
leaves  that  theory  no  peg  to  hang  on.  Abraham 
is  as  real  a  figure  as  Moses. 

3.  They  insist  upon  the  legendary  chara(5ler 
of  the  Mosaic  and  the  post- Mosaic  history,  which 
we  are  assured  was  very  different  from  what  the 
books  represent  it  ;  and  that  even  Hosea  did  not 
know  what  he  was  talking  about.  Upon  that  I 
make  no  comment.     It  needs  none. 

4.  They  insist  that  Deuteronomy  Avas  not 
written  until  900  years  after  Moses,  and  that  the 
entire  account  of  the  addresses  which  he  is  repre- 
sented as  giving,  is  ficftitious.  Ewald  protests 
against  the  suggestion  that  Hilkiah  forged  the 
document ;  but  the  present  critics  are  not  so  sen- 
sitive. Upon  that  I  make  no  comment.  It  needs 
none. 

5.  They  insist  that  the  legislation  which  makes 
up  the  larger  part  of  the  middle  books  of  the 


164  OI.D   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRK. 

Pentateuch,  and  which  is  habitually  introduced 
by  the  phrase  :  '  *  The  Lord  said  unto  Moses, ' '  so 
affirming  plainly  and  frequently  its  Mosaic  ori- 
gin, was  inoperative  and  unknown  for  a  thousand 
years  after  the  great  lawgiver's  death,  and  was 
the  produdl  of  Ezekiel  and  Ezra,  about  450  B.C. 
The  document,  embodying  this  legislation,  was 
called  the  "Book  of  Origins,"  by  Kwald,  but 
has  been  more  generally  spoken  of  as  the 
work  of  the  Elohist,  and  now  passes  under  the 
title  of  the  Priest-code,  and  is  designated  by  the 
letter  P. 

It  had  been  the  unanimous  judgment  of  schol- 
ars, that  this  document  was  the  oldest  of  the 
two  main  documents  which  make  up  the  Penta- 
teuch. It  was  claimed  that  its  classical  style 
proved  its  high  antiquity,  and  that  its  narrative 
portions  were  invested  with  the  highest  credibil- 
ity. The  first  chapter  of  Genesis  belongs.to  this 
document.  In  1866  Graf,  who  had  been  a  pupil 
of  Reuss,  startled  the  learned  world  by  reversing 
this  unanimous  verdi(5l,  separating  the  legal  from 
the  historical  portions  of  the  Elohist  document,  and 
maintaining  that  the  laws  were  not  ena<fled  before 


CRITICISM  AND   COMMON  SENSK.       '      1 65 

the  Kxile.  He  admitted,  however,  the  antiquity 
of  the  narratives.  He  was  soon  reminded  that 
the  two  parts  were  so  closely  interwoven,  that 
both  must  share  a  common  fortune,  and,  without 
an  instant's  hesitation,  Graf  announced  that  the 
history  must  go  down  with  the  laws.  The  clas- 
sical style  of  the  document  could  not  save  it,  a 
fa(5t  which  it  is  well  to  remember  when  the  critics 
use  that  argument  upon  other  occasions.  The 
Dutch  critic,  Kuenen,  who  had  been  powerfully 
influenced  by  Colenso,  promptly  gave  the  new 
theory  his  earnest  and  aggressive  support;  but  it 
was  not  until  1878,  when  Wellhausen  gave  it  his 
indorsement,  that  it  secured  any  considerable  fol- 
lowing, and  during  all  these  years  it  has  been 
vigorously  challenged  and  opposed  upon  schol- 
arly grounds. 

Reuss,  George,  Vatke,  and  Popper  had  antici- 
pated the  new  critics,  the  former  by  more  than 
thirty  years.  Bleek,  Ryssel,  Schrader,  Kloster- 
mann,  Baudissen,  Kay,  Kleinert,  Dillmann,  De- 
litzch,  Strack,  Hoffmann,  Orelli,  Oehler,  Keil, 
Riehm,  Buhl,  Hommel,  Bohl,  Bredenkampf, 
Marti,    Kittel,    Konig,    Zahn,    Rupprecht,    and 


1 66  OIvD   TE^STAMKNT  UNDKR   FIREJ. 

Hoedemaker  may  be  mentioned  as  emphatically 
condemning  the  main  positions  of  this  school, 
whose  most  recent  leaders  are  Kuenen  and  Well- 
hausen.  Of  those  I  have  named,  the  last  four 
have  published  their  stricftures  since  1894.  Eng- 
lish and  American  scholarship,  defending  the 
conservative  position,  is  represented  by  Davidson, 
Pusey,  Stanley,  Duff,  Geikie,  Watson,  Sime, 
Binnie,  Watts,  Cave,  KHicott,  I^eathes,  Simon, 
Orr,  Dods,  Rainy,  Robertson,  French,  Sayce, 
Cotterill,  McClintock,  Strong,  Bissell,  Vos, 
Mead,  Dwinell,  Trumbull,  Bartlett,  Curtiss, 
I^add,  Chambers,  Green,  Osgood,  Stebbins,  Gar- 
diner, Schodde,  Terry,  Steinert,  Denio,  Zenos, 
Beattie,  Morse,  Warfield,  and  Willis  J.  Beecher. 
This  list  of  seventy  names  belongs  wholly  to  the 
last  fifty  years,  and  the  greater  part  to  the  last 
twenty-five  3^ears. 

Besides,  it  has  been  made  so  perfedlly^  plain 
that  many  of  the  I^evitical  laws  are  older  than  the 
period  of  Josiah,  and  that  some  of  them  are  even 
pre-Mosaic,  that  many  of  the  critics  have  been 
forced  to  admit  that  the  Priest-code  embodies 
legislation  of  the  highest  antiquity,  and  is  not  to 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SENSE.  1 67 

be  regarded  as  a  document  manufadlured  by  the 
priests  of  Kzra's  time,  but  as  a  compilation  and 
recodification  of  ancient  regulations,  both  written 
and  traditional.  This  is  the  contention  of  Driver 
and  Briggs.  This  concession  is  the  thin  edge  of 
the  wedge,  which  must  ultimately  split  the  Well- 
hausen  theory  into  fragments.  The  dissedlion  of 
the  Pentateuch  is  not  an  easy  task  ;  but  it  is 
child's  play  compared  with  the  attempt  to  break 
up  the  Priest-code  into  successive  layers  of  legis- 
lation. The  code  is  compadl,  so  uniform  in  liter- 
ary structure  that  it  cannot  be  divided  into  old 
and  new.  Besides,  the  separate  secflions  are 
introduced  by  the  uniform  formula  :  * '  The  Lord 
said  unto  Moses,"  which  must  be  held  to  be  true 
of  all ,  or  true  of  none,  unless  we  are  prepared  to 
grant  that  the  critic  can  infallibly  determine 
where  the  statement  is  true,  and  where  it  is  false. 
Moreover,  the  legislation  is  imbedded  in  a  narra- 
tive which  is  located  in  the  time  of  Moses,  and 
which  embodies  such  fa(5ls  as  the  Kxodus,  the 
giving  of  the  Law  at  Sinai,  the  building  of  the 
tabernacle,  the  provision  of  manna,  the  consecra- 
tion of  Aaron  to   the  priesthood,   the   death    of 


1 68  OlyD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

Nadab  and  Abihu  for  violating  the  law  prescrib- 
ing the  offering  of  incense,  the  numbering  of  the 
people,  the  dedication  of  the  sancfluary,  the  mur- 
murings  of  the  Israelites,  the  leprosy  of  Miriam, 
the  mission  of  the  spies,  the  stoning  of  the  Sab- 
bath breaker,  the  judgment  upon  Korah,  Dathan, 
and  Abiram,  the  blossoming  of  Aaron's  rod,  the 
miraculous  supply  of  water,  the  death  of  Aaron, 
the  story  of  Balak  and  Balaam,  the  zeal  of  Phin-. 
ehas,  and  the  appointment  of  Joshua  as  the  suc- 
cessor of  Moses.  These  narratives  and  the  laws 
are  woven  together.  If  the  narratives  are  true,  the 
laws  are  old,  and  of  Mosaic  origin,  enacfted  during 
the  forty  years  which  cover  the  wilderness  life.  If 
the  laws  belong  in  large  part  to  the  time  of 
Ezra,  a  thousand  years  later,  the  narratives  must 
be  fidlitious,  deliberately  invented  to  give  a  plaus- 
ible coloring  of  Mosaic  authority  to  the  laws. 
Reuss  is  brutally  frank  when  he  tells  us  that  the 
history  is  a  "base  fidlion,  the  dream  of  an  im- 
poverished race  ; ' '  and  Kuenen  and  Wellhausen 
declare  the  narratives  to  be  thoroughly  unhis- 
torical  and  unreliable. 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSK.  1 69 

EVIDENCE    ADDUCED    IN    BEHALF    OF   ADVERSE 
PENTATEUCHAL    CRITICISM. 

The  only  tangible  evidence  offered  in  support 
of  a  claim  wliich  carries  such  conclusions  with  it, 
which  makes  the  Pentateuchal  history  a  conscious 
and  deliberate  fraud  and  forgery,  is  drawn  from 
the  historical  books,  which  show  that  for  many 
centuries  after  Moses  the  laws  of  the  Priest-code 
were  not  enforced.  This  general  non-observance 
is  construed  as  proving  that  such  a  law  could  not 
have  been  known,  and  that  it  could  not  have  been 
in  existence.  And  3^et,  we  read  of  the  sandluary 
and  ark  at  Shiloh,  and  of  the  high  priest  there, 
and  of  sacrifices  offered  there.  We  read  also  of 
the  national  grief  and  despair  when  the  ark  was 
captured,  and  of  the  national  joy  when  another 
resting  place  was  secured  for  it.  We  have  a  long 
account  of  the  building  of  the  temple  by  Solo- 
mon, and  of  the  impressive  magnificence  of  its 
dedication.  We  do  not  read  of  many  arks,  nor 
of  many  tabernacles,  nor  of  many  temples.  The 
worship  appears  as  centralized  in  the  days  of 
Samuel,  David,  and  Solomon  ;  and  throughout 
the    succeeding    record,    sacrifice   on    the   high 


lyo  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRK. 

places  is  spoken  of  in  terms  of  condemnation. 
Samuel's  sacrifice  at  Mizpeh  and  Bethlehem,  and 
Klijah's  sacrifice  on  Mount  Carmel,  have  been 
adduced  to  prove  the  contrary.  But  the  circum- 
stances were  extraordinary,  and  no  permanent 
altars  were  erecfted.  In  Samuel's  case  the  ark 
had  been  captured,  and  that  made  an  end  of 
Shiloh  as  a  sandluary.  Sacrifice  could  be  offered 
only  where  God's  prophet  happened  to  be  ;  for, 
Shiloh  having  been  deserted  by  God,  He  could 
be  present  only  in  the  person  of  His  prophet. 
And  the  same  facft  explains  the  a(5lion  of  Klijah 
on  Mount  Carmel,  for  in  the  kingdom  of  North- 
ern Palestine  there  never  had  been,  and  could  not 
be,  an  authorized  sancftuary.  These  instances  do 
not  contradidl  the  law  in  Deuteronomy  and 
Leviticus,  which  limits  sacrifice  to  the  place  which 
the  Lord  should  choose.  No  definite  place  was 
mentioned,  and  when  none  existed,  as  in  the^case 
of  Samuel  and  of  Elijah,  the  prophet  was  the  only 
man  with  whom  the  choice  of  place  rested.  The 
old  maxim,  '' exccptio  probat  regulam'"  applies 
here.  The  exceptional  and  extraordinary  in- 
stances  prove    that  the   general    law   was   well 


CRITICISM   AND    COMMON   SKNSE.  17I 

known,  and  was  respe(5led.  Under  the  monarchy, 
and  after  the  middle  of  Solomon's  reign,  sacrifices 
on  the  high  places  gained  entrance  and  were 
stubbornly  persisted  in  ;  but  the  ark  and  the 
temple  remained  as  the  central  rallying  place,  a 
standing  protest  against  the  multiplication  of 
altars. 

THE    REAL    HISTORY. 

Taking  the  history  as  a  w^hole,  and  treating  it 
in  the  w^ay  of  general  credibility,  refusing  to 
regard  it  as  self-contradi(5lory,  we  find  that  after 
the  removal  of  the  ark  to  Jerusalem,  and  after  the 
building  of  the  Temple  by  Solomon,  sacrifice 
upon  the  high  places  is  always  recorded  as  un- 
authorized and  condemnable.  There  was  a  cen- 
tral sandluary,  and  a  single  authorized  altar.  In 
the  early  periods  of  Samuel's  life,  the  record 
speaks  of  the  san(5luary  and  the  ark  at  Shiloh,  as 
the  sacrificial  rallying  point  of  the  nation,  and 
there  is  no  intimation  that  there  was  any  other. 
Then  came  the  capture  of  the  ark  by  the  Philis- 
tines, as  the  judgment  of  God  upon  the  sons  of 
Kli,  who  had  defiled  and  disgraced  the  priest- 
hood.     That  made  an   end   of  Shiloh.      Seven 


172  OI.D   TESTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRK. 

months  the  ark  remained  in  captivity,  and  then 
it  was  returned  to  Kirjath-Jearim  ;  but  while  the 
priests  and  the  diviners  were  consulted,  and  took 
part  in  the  restoration,  Samuel  does  not  appear  as 
having  any  share  in  the  arrangements.  The 
return  of  the  ark  did  not  remove  the  Divine  dis- 
pleasure ;  and  the  prophet  of  God  was  silent, 
which  was  an  ominous  sign.  He  shunned  the 
ark,  and  this  negledl  continued,  as  we  are  in- 
formed, for  twenty  years.  When  at  last  David 
ventured  to  remove  it  from  Kirjath-Jearim,  after 
Samuel's  death,  he  was  interrupted  by  the  death 
of  Uzzah  ;  and,  interpreting  this  as  evidence  of 
God's  displeasure,  the  king  feared  to  carry  out 
his  plans,  and  left  the  ark  in  the  house  of  Obed- 
Kdom.  There  the  ark  remained  for  three  months, 
and  brought  with  it  a  blessing  to  the  home  of 
Obed-Kdom.  When  David  learned  this  fadl,  he 
interpreted  it  as  a  sign  that  his  original  purpose 
was  approved  of  God,  and  he  promptly  brought 
the  ark  into  Jerusalem  wdth  great  and  eager  joy. 
The  lesson  is  plain  and  unmistakable  ;  for  more 
than  twenty  years  there  was  no  divinely  recog- 
nized sancfluary;  and  in  view  of  its  former  exist- 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSK.  1 73 

ence  at  Shiloh,  and  its  later  establishment  at 
Jerusalem,  we  must  conclude  that  there  must 
have  been  good  reasons  for  the  twenty  years 
during  which  there  was  no  fixed  place  of  sacri- 
fice. Samuel  went  neither  to  Shiloh,  where  the 
ark  had  been,  nor  to  Kirjath-Jearim,  where  the 
ark  was  ;  but  sacrificed  at  Mizpeh  or  Gilgal  or 
Bethlehem,  as  his  judgment  didlated.  He  simply 
fell  back  upon  the  earlier  patriarchal  pra(5lise, 
until  the  Divine  displeasure  should  have  passed 
away.  This  is  a  perfe(5lly  natural  explanation, 
and  does  not  array  one  part  of  the  history  against 
the  other  ;  for  when  that  is  done,  it  must  be 
impossible  to  determine  what  were  the  real  facfts. 
In  the  case  of  Elijah  the  exceptional  condition 
of  things  is  even  more  evident.  Northern  Israel 
never  had  an  authorized  sancfluary,  nor  a  legiti- 
mate priesthood.  When  Jeroboam  seceded,  he 
built  altars  at  Dan  and  at  Bethel ;  but  the  record 
which  makes  mention  of  the  fa6l,  also  discloses 
the  fa(?t  that  Jerusalem  was  regarded  as  the  only 
lawful  place  of  sacrifice,  and  further  declares  that 
Jeroboam  was  guilty  of  idolatry,  and  was  pub- 
licly rebuked  by  a  prophet  of  God.     In  such  a 


174  OI-D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

condition  of  religious  anarchy,  a  prophet  like 
Elijah  could  only  take  counsel  with  himself,  as  to 
when  and  where  it  was  proper  for  him  to  sacri- 
fice. The  cases  are  plainly  exceptional,  and  they 
have  their  place  in  a  narrative  which  discloses  a 
central  and  exclusive  sancfluary  at  Shiloh,  and  at 
Jerusalem  ;  so  that  the  record  itself  contradi(fts 
the  interpretation  of  the  critics.  To  claim  that 
such  exceptional  cases  illustrate  the  ancient, 
ordinary,  and  universal  pracftise  ;  and  upon  the 
ground  of  such  an  assumption,  to  cast  wholesale 
discredit  upon  the  historical  setting  of  Deuter- 
onomy, and  of  the  middle  books  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, is  an  outrage  upon  all  canons  of  sober 
criticism,  and  is  entitled  to  no  courtesy  of  treat- 
ment. No  reason  can  be  given  why  one  part  of 
the  record  should  be  regarded  as  infallibly  cor- 
real, while  the  other  is  dismissed  as  having  been 
inserted  by  the  hand  of  a  later  writer,  who  .was 
so  stupid  as  not  to  see  that  his  own  additions 
squarely  contradidled  the  story  which  he  copied. 
There  is  just  as  good  ground  for  affirming  that 
Samuel  never  sacrificed  at  Mizpeh,  Gilgal,  and 
Bethlehem,  and  that  Elijah  never  built  an  altar 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON   SKNSK.  1 75 

Upon  Mount  Carmel,  as  that  a  central  and  exclus- 
ively authorized  sandluary  did  not  exist  in  the 
time  of  the  Judges  and  the  Kings.  The  only  con- 
sistent thing  to  do,  is  either  to  take  the  record  as 
it  stands  and  harmonize  its  statements,  or  to 
stamp  the  whole  of  it  as  unreliable  and  unworthy 
of  credence.  The  assumption  of  the  critics  that 
the  sacrificial  worship  was  not  authoritatively 
centralized  and  limited  until  the  eighteenth  year 
of  Josiah,  about  622  B.  C,  cannot  be  made  out 
without  discrediting  in  large  part  the  historical 
books  to  which  they  appeal. 

And  this  they  do  not  hesitate  to  do.  The  nar- 
ratives in  the  Pentateuch  are  declared  to  be  fi(5li- 
tious,  and  the  literary  inventions  of  a  late  day. 
The  books  of  Joshua  and  Judges  fare  no  better. 
Samuel  and  Kings  have  been  tampered  with. 
Chronicles  is  purely  fi(ftitious  history.  It  repre- 
sents only  what  was  believed  and  taught  by  the 
priests  in  the  fourth  century  B.  C.  The  prophets, 
too,  were  the  victims  of  the  same  hallucination. 
They  did  not  know  the  real  history.  They  were 
mistaken  when  they  represented  Israel  as  guilty 
of  disobedience  and  apostasy.   Their  burning  zeal 


176  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRK. 

outran  their  knowledge.  What  now  remains  of 
the  Old  Testament  literature  as  a  record  of  his- 
torical fadls  ?  Nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  The 
critics  have  cut  the  ground  from  under  their  own 
feet.  They  use  Samuel  and  Kings  to  discredit 
the  Pentateuch,  but  they  cannot  even  do  that 
without  casting  discredit  upon  Samuel  and  Kings. 
For  as  the  record  stands,  it  flatly  contradi(5ls,  at 
many  points  of  the  narrative,  and  in  the  most  in- 
cidental way,  the  theory  that  Deuteronomy  was 
unknown  during  the  period  of  the  Judges  and  the 
major  part  of  the  monarchy,  and  that  sacrifice  on 
the  high  places  was  not  regarded  as  unauthorized. 
The  discrepancy  is  removed  by  maintaining,  and 
attempting  to  prove,  that  Joshua,  Judges,  Samuel, 
and  Kings,  exist  onl}^  in  the  Deuteronomic  redac- 
tion, and  by  the  easy  process  of  crediting  all  ob- 
noxious passages  to  the  Deuteronomic  editor,  the 
critics  claim  that  the  narrative  proves  that  the 
Deuteronomic  law  was  unknown.  They  rely 
upon  the  prophets  to  drag  Moses  from  his  seat, 
and  to  do  that  they  must  charge  the  prophets  with 
ignorance.  They  appeal  to  the  historians  to  dis- 
credit the  priests,  and  to  do  that  they  must  deci- 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON   SKNSK.  1 77 

mate  the  work  of  the  historians.  Is  that  science  ? 
Are  such  statements  and  charges  to  be  accepted 
as  a  matter  of  course,  and  to  be  listened  to  in 
patience?  They  are  entitled  only  to  lightning 
condemnation. 

HISTORY      OF      THE      OLD      TESTAMENT     AS     RECON- 
STRUCTED   BY    THE    CRITICS. 

lyCt  me  sketch,  as  far  as  I  may  be  able,  the  real 
history  of  the  Old  Testament  religion,  as  the 
critics  constru(5l  it  after  having  decimated  the 
documents,  and  involved  them  in  general  dis- 
credit. I  leave  my  reader  to  judge  how  much 
confidence  can  be  reasonably  given  to  critical 
methods,  which  conducft  to  such  a  result.  Gen- 
esis, from  cover  to  cover,  is  treated  as  a  mass  of 
popular  sagas  and  legends,  ranking  with  the 
pagan  mythologies  and  heroic  tales.  The  patri- 
archal history  is  dissolved  into  literary  ficflion. 
Wellhausen  concedes  that  a  small  body  of  men  and 
women,  under  the  leadership  of  Moses,  marched 
out  of  Egypt,  through  the  wilderness  ;  and 
across  the  Jordan,  under  Joshua,  into  Canaan. 
Stade  will  not  admit  even  this ;  Jiilicher  treats 


178  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

the  whole  story  of  the  plagues  with  sarcastic  con- 
tempt. And  all  the  critics  are  agreed  that  what- 
ever the  real  facfls  may  have  been,  they  have 
become  almost  unrecognizable,  because  of  the 
miraculous  coloring,  which,  of  course,  is  wholly 
fi(5litious.  Covenant  with  Abraham  there  was 
none,  the  vocation  of  Moses  is  the  fanciful  sketch 
of  a  late  age,  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  is  in- 
credible, the  manna  never  fell,  the  forty  years  of 
desert  life  are  a  pure  invention.  Moses  died,  of 
course,  but  he  never  delivered,  in  the  plains  of 
Moab,  the  discourses  which  are  attributed  to 
him.  The  books  of  Joshua  and  of  Judges  are  as 
unreliable  as  the  Pentateuch.  We  do  not  reach 
firm,  historical  ground,  until  we  come  to  the  time 
of  Solomon,  though  even  here  we  must  sift  our 
authorities.  The  history  as  recorded  in  Kings 
has  been  tampered  with,  and  Chronicles  is  re- 
garded as  pradlically  worthless.  Monotheism 
was  not  the  original  creed  of  the  nation.  The 
word  Klohim  points  to  a  polytheistic  period. 
Jehovah  was  simply  the  tribal  and  national  God. 
The  temple  and  the  high  places  represented  two 
parties  in  the  national  religion,  neither  of  which 


CRITICISM   AND    COMMON  SKNSK.  1 79 

could  rightly  claim  priority  or  exclusive  author- 
ity. With  Hosea  and  Amos  the  monotheistic 
party  seized  the  theological  leadership,  and  after 
two  hundred  years  secured  pradlical  ascendancy. 
This  led  to  the  centralization  of  the  national  wor- 
ship, of  which  Deuteronomy  was  the  literary 
measure  and  result.  Then  came  the  destru(5lion 
of  the  temple,  and  during  the  captivity  the  priests 
elaborated  a  code,  which  Ezra  brought  with  him 
to  Jerusalem  and  completed  about  the  middle 
of  the  fifth  century,  B.  C.  Thus,  the  theology 
of  the  Old  Testament  was  the  creation  of  the 
prophets  of  the  ninth  and  eighth  centuries,  B. 
C,  and  the  priests  of  Ezra's  time  organized  the 
ritual  of  the  san(5luary.  On  its  face,  the  Book  of 
Job  is  located  in  a  primitive  state  of  society,  but 
the  theology  of  Job  is  high,  and  its  monotheism 
is  pronounced  ;  therefore,  in  spite  of  style  and 
coloring,  it  is  dragged  down  to  a  late  date. 
Proverbs  and  Kcclesiastes  share  the  same  fate. 
The  decided  monotheism  of  the  Psalter  leads  the 
critics  to  push  not  only  the  colle(5lion  of  the 
psalms,  but  their  composition,  to  the  period  of  the 
second  temple.     Kwald  leaves  thirteen  psalms  to 


l8o  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

David,  but  refuses  to  credit  him  with,  the  Twenty- 
third  and  the  Fifty -first  psahns  ;  and  Kwald  is 
more  than  usually  generous  ;  the  general  disposi- 
tion is  to  deny  all  Davidic  authorship.  All  that 
is  high  in  theological  tone,  or  refledls  an  orderly 
and  ordered  form  of  worship,  is  assumed  to  be  of 
late  origin — the  produ<5l  of  a  period  which,  when 
judged  by  the  literary  remnants  left  us  in  the 
Apocryphal  books,  was  destitute  of  genius,  nar- 
row in  its  outlook,  and  stupid  in  childish  super- 
stition. This  is  called  a  reconstru(5lion  of  Israel's 
history  ;  it  is  simply  its  demolition  ;  and  the  re- 
sult is  a  travesty  of  criticism. 

ORDER    OF     THE    CODES. 

This  constru(5lion  of  Israel's  history  depends 
entirely  upon  the  assumption,  that  the  order  of 
the  Pentateuchal  Codes  begins  with  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant,  which  includes  the  laws  recorded  in 
Exodus  XX.  :  1 8 — xxiii.  :  33.  From  that  point 
we  must  jump  over  Leviticus  and  Numbers,  and 
find  the  second  Code  of  laws  in  Deuteronomy. 
Then  we  must  leap  back  again  to  Exodus  xxiv. , 
at  which  point  the  final  and  most  elaborate  Code 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSK.  l8l 

begins.  The  Book  of  the  Covenant  is  supposed 
to  be  Mosaic,  the  basis  of  the  Sinai  and  wilder- 
ness organization.  The  Deuteronomic  Code  is 
located  in  the  time  of  Josiah,  about  622  B.  C. 
The  Priest-code  is  nearly  two  hundred  years 
later,  the  combined  work  of  Kzekiel  and  Ezra, 
about  440  B.  C.  This  arrangement  violently  dis- 
locates the  literary  material  as  it  lies  before  us, 
and  makes  the  narrative  portions  of  the  Priest- 
code  utterly  misleading  and  unreliable.  At  the 
same  time  the  Decalogue  is  left  hanging  in  air. 
Its  most  natural  place  would  be  in  the  Book  of 
the  Covenant.  But  to  locate  it  there  would  over- 
turn the  entire  critical  strudlure.  For  Genesis 
i.  :  I — ii.  :  4,  is  declared  to  be  from  the  hand  of 
P.,  who  wrote  in  Ezra's  time.  But  in  the  fourth 
commandment  there  is  an  unmistakable  reference 
to  the  creation  story  in  Genesis  ;  and  to  admit 
that  the  Decalogue  belongs  to  the  first  Code  of 
laws,  would  be  to  grant  that  the  contents  of  the 
creation  story  were  already  known  and  current 
in  their  present  form  ;  which,  of  course,  would 
make  havoc  of  the  entire  critical  contention.  It 
is  an  awkward  thing  for  the  critics,  that  there 


1 82  OLD  'TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   EIRE. 

should  be  any  Decalogue  at  all,  especially  to  find 
it  inserted  where  it  is.  The  order  of  Codes  which 
the  narrative  indicates,  is  the  Decalogue  first, 
as  the  foundation  of  the  entire  legislation  ;  next 
the  Book  of  the  Covenant,  with  its  few  and  sim- 
ple regulations ;  next  the  Priest-code  entering 
more  fully  into  the  details  of  worship  and  life  ; 
and,  finally,  the  Deuteronomic  summary  and 
modifications,  made  necessary  by  the  near  settle- 
ment in  Canaan.  This  is  the  natural  order,  cor- 
responding exadlly  to  the  historical  setting, 
doing  no  violence  to  the  material,  and  giving  to 
the  Decalogue  its  commanding  place.  In  wrench- 
ing the  Decalogue  from  the  Law  Book,  the 
critics  simply  decapitate  the  legislation,  and  leave 
it  a  mutilated  and  ghastly  trunk  ;  and  with  the 
legislation  goes  tht  history  ! 

SOURCES    OF    INFORMATION  WORTHY   OF  CREDENCE. 

The  first  canon  of  historical  criticism  is,  that 
the  sources  which  are  consulted  and  examined 
shall  be  treated  as  entitled  to  belief.  If  di- 
vergencies are  found,  the  elements  of  common 
agreement  must  be  searched  for,  and  made  the 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSE.  1 83 

foundation  of  the  historical  narrative.  Nor  must 
the  discrepancies  be  interpreted  as  contradicftions, 
but  as  the  partial  reports  of  equally  honest  wit- 
nesses or  writers.  The  charge  of  falsehood  is  the 
very  last  one  which  should  be  made  or  entertained. 
This  is  the  method  of  every  great  historian.  And 
if,  as  is  often  the  case,  he  finds  it  impossible  to 
harmonize  divergent  accounts,  he  simply  acknow- 
ledges the  facfl,  without  even  hinting  the  charge 
of  dishonesty.  Much  less  would  he  assume  that 
all  the  available  documents  had  been  tampered 
with,  in  the  interest  of  more  or  less  deliberate 
deception.  Such  a  procedure  would  be  laughed 
out  of  court  in  secular  history.  But  the  radical 
critics  make  such  a  procedure  in  dealing  with  the 
Old  Testament  books  fundamental.  The  histor- 
ical books  are  arrayed  against  the  Pentateuch, 
and  especially  against  the  Priest-code.  Whatever 
in  the  historical  books  does  not  square  with  the 
theory,  is  declared  to  be  the  work  of  a  later 
writer,  who  invented  the  facfls  to  support  his  own 
view.  Some  one,  steeped  in  the  philosophy  and 
theology  of  Deuterononi}^,  which  is  assumed  to 
have  been  produced  in  the  seventh  century,  B.C., 


1 84  OI.D  TESTAMENT  UNDER    FIRE. 

is  declared  to  have  thrust  his  views  into  the 
entire  literature,  from  Moses  to  Chronicles,  and 
the  prophets  themselves  are  regarded  as  vidlims 
of  the  same  hallucination.  The  result  is  expressed 
in  the  phrase  "idealized  history,"  which  is 
applied  with  equal  facility  to  Jonah,  Judges, 
Exodus,  Samuel,  and  Kings.  And  in  plain 
speech,  idealized  history  is  idealized  nonsense. 
It  simply  means  fidlion  and  fable.  The  man  who 
invents  his  fadls,  or  distorts  them,  is  not  a  man 
who  can  be  trusted  in  telling  us  what  the  invented 
fa<fls  mean.  It  is  serious  enough  to  find  the 
critics  denying  all  miracle  and  prophecy  as  abso- 
lutely incredible,  and  reducing  the  supernatural 
to  a  religious  estimate  of  the  purely  natural,  but 
it  is  tenfold  more  serious  to  reduce  the  Old  Testa- 
ment to  a  warring  camp,  in  which  the  writers 
slaughter  each  other,  and  fall  upon  their  own 
swords.  But  the  critics  have  no  option  in  the  mat- 
ter. The  documents  must  be  discredited  to  make 
their  theory  good.  For  if  the  facfts  were  as  they  are 
stated,  the  revolutionary  criticism  is  thoroughly 
discredited  ;  and  if  the  fadts  were  not  as  they  are 
stated,  the  attempted  reconstrudlion  is  a  waste  of 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SENSE.  1 85 

ingenuity,  and  we  might  as  well  consign  tlie  Old 
Testament  to  our  garrets  or  cellars,  as  unworthy 
of  any  serious,  historical  study. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  inerrancy  here  ;  it  is  not 
a  question  of  discrepancies  in  detailed  description ; 
it  is  not  a  question  of  geography,  of  numbers, 
and  of  chronologies  ;  the  claim  is  that  the  history 
is  fabricated  and  false,  from  cover  to  cover  ;  and 
that  the  real  fa(5ls  are  the  very  reverse  from  the 
account  given  in  the  Old  Testament.  Mistakes 
the  most  accurate  and  painstaking  historian  may 
make,  and  does  make.  And  it  is  not  necessary 
to  assume  that  inspiration  secured  photographic 
inerrancy.  But  it  requires  no  argument  to  prove, 
that  a  historian  who  deliberately  invents  his  fadls, 
and  who  gives  a  thoroughly  false  pidlure  of  the 
times  which  he  describes,  cannot  be  honest,  much 
less  inspired.  He  may  be  honest  and  trust- 
worthy, without  being  inspired  ;  but  he  cannot 
be  inspired,  and  yet  be  dishonest  and  a  false  wit- 
ness. An  inspiration  defended  at  the  cost  of 
honesty,  is  an  insult  to  man,  and  it  is  blasphemy 
against  God.  I  do  not  know  that  the  denial  of 
inspiration  would  seriously  disturb  me,  so  long  as 


l86  OLD  O'E^STAMKNT  UNDKR   FIRE). 

the  truth  of  the  BibHcal  record  is  conceded  and 
assured.  If  the  Bible  is  true  —  that  is  all  for 
which  I  care.  But  if  the  Biblical  history  is  fabri- 
cated and  false,  I  resent  all  cheap  and  sentimental 
talk  about  inspiration  and  revelation.  Lies  do 
not  come  from  God  ;  they  are  Satanic  in  origin 
and  contents  ;  and  if  it  can  be  made  clear  to  me 
that  the  Pentateuchal  narrative  is,  as  Reuss  says, 
"a  base  fidlion,"  then  I  shall  be  consistent 
enough  to  declare  that  the  Old  Testament  is  the 
devil's  book,  and  not  God's. 

Nor,  upon  such  a  theory,  have  I  any  use  for 
the  New  Testament,  which  grows  from  the  same 
stock.  For  if  there  be  falsehood  in  the  tap  root, 
the  poison  must  be  in  every  twig,  leaf,  bud,  and 
blossom.  This  cannot  be  a  tree  of  life,  but  a  tree 
of  death.  The  conclusion  is  startling,  but  I  do 
not  see  how  it  can  be  evaded ;  and  when  I  see 
how  this  revolutionary  criticism  has  gone  to  pieces 
when  it  has  laid  hands  upon  the  New  Testament, 
I  feel  assured  that  its  lances  will  break  wlien  they 
touch  the  older  Scriptures.  For  myself,  I  insist 
that  when  the  new  school  declares  Deuteronomy 
to  be  the  literary  invention  of  the  seventh  cen- 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON  SKNSE.  1 87 

tury  B.  C,  and  the  Levitical  legislation  to  be  the 
literary  invention  of  the  fifth  century  B.  C,  they 
have  not  a  shred  of  evidence  upon  which  to  rest, 
and  their  treatment  of  the  documents  and  of  their 
authors  is  such  as  to  arouse  the  indignant  remon- 
strance of  all  who  are  not  prepared  to  charge  the 
Old  Testament  writers  with  wholesale  falsehood. 
A  charge  so  outrageous  thrusts  the  sword  into  its 
own  vitals. 

CRITICISM    AND     COMMON    SENSE. 

And  there  is  just  one  thing  more  I  want  to  say, 
and  to  say  it  as  emphatically  as  I  can.  Nearly 
eighty  j^ears  ago,  in  181 9,  Archbishop  Whateley, 
then  a  fellow  in  Oriel  College  and  thirty-two 
years  of  age,  made  the  skeptical  school  of  his 
time  the  target  of  his  wit  b}^  arguing,  with  ap- 
parent seriousness,  that  nothing  was  positively 
known  concerning  the  life  of  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte, and  that  it  was  somewhat  doubtful 
whether  such  a  man  ever  lived.  Of  course, 
everybody  laughed,  except  the  critics.  A  few 
years  ago  one  of  our  American  scholars,  then 
residing  in  Germany,  dissected  the  Kpistle  to  the 


l88  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

Romans,  as  the  critics  do  the  Pentateuch,   and 
made  out  a  very  good  case  that   several  docu- 
ments could  clearly  be  traced  in   its  structure. 
Of  course,   many  laughed  ;    the  critics   sneered, 
but   they  winced    as    they  sneered.        Professor 
Green  has  shown  that  it  is  as  easy  to  make  out 
the  dual  strucfture  of  the  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son,  as  to  dissedl  the  story  of  Joseph  into  two 
interwoven  narratives.     There  is  not  an  oration, 
or  essay,  or  poem,  which  could  not  be  shown  to 
be  composite  in  its  strudlure.      The  Interior  of 
Chicago  reports  that    ' '  the   editor  of  a  Baptist 
paper  in  Waco,  Tex.,  finds  it  easier  to  believe  in 
two  Harpers  than  in  two  Isaiahs.     The  style  of 
Isaiah  xl.  may  be  quite  different  from  the  style  of 
Isaiah  xxxix.,   but   the   assertions  of  President 
Harper  in  one  part  of  his  writings  are  contra- 
di(5led  by  assertions  in  what  follows.     In  one  part 
of  his  essay  he  says  that  the  early  chapters  of 
Genesis  constitute    'the    beginning  of   history,' 
and    in    another    that    these    chapters    *  contain 
neither  history  nor  geography.'        In  one  place 
he  says  that  the  writer  of  these  chapters  '  takes 
the  stories  common  to  all  ancient  nations,'   and 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON   SKNSK.  1 89 

ill  another  place,  that  the  book  is  a  *  compilation 
from  written  sources,  not  one  of  which  goes  back 
to  the  days  of  Solomon.'  "  And  the  Waco  Bap- 
tist editor  concludes  ' '  Our  critics  do  not  agree 
with  each  other,  but  that  is  no  reason  why  one 
of  them  should  get  into  a  shindy  with  himself. ' ' 
Nor  has  any  great  history  ever  been  written, 
where  a  microscopic  criticism  could  not  discover 
inaccuracies,  and  discrepancies,  and  want  of  full 
information,  and  where  these  could  not, be  used  to 
discredit  the  entire  story,  and  convidl  the  writer 
either  of  ignorance  or  of  wilful  deception.  Such 
criticism  outrages  common  sense,  and  common  sense 
is  needed  in  the  critical  study  of  the  Bible.  It  is  a 
wise  maxim  of  the  law,  that  a  man  shall  be  deemed 
innocent  until  he  has  been  proved  guilty.  It  is  a 
wise  maxim  of  literary  criticism,  that  the  historian 
must  be  assumed  to  be  honest  and  worthy  of  con- 
fidence. And  all  the  more  must  this  hold  true, 
when  we  find  that  his  writings  have  had  wide  cir- 
culation from  very  early  times,  and  that  during 
all  these  centuries  they  have  been  regarded  with 
profoundest  veneration  by  a  most  remarkable 
people,   wdiose  ancestry  is  lost  in  the  depths  of 


I  go  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    EIRE. 

antiquity.  If  we  make  the  Old  Testament  false, 
what  shall  we  do  with  the  Jews,  whose  fortunes 
are  traced  in  these  Scriptures,  and  whose  law  they 
still  reverence  and  obey  ?  To  suppose  that  their 
history  for  more  than  2,300  years,  since  Ezra's 
time,  has  been  based  upon  faith  in  fabricated 
documents,  makes  a  somewhat  large  demand 
upon  credulity.  It  argues  a  criminal  audacity  in 
the  priesthood  of  Ezra's  day,  and  a  dense  stupid- 
ity on  the  part  of  the  people,  which  are  simply 
incredible.  A  sober  judgment  will  conclude  that 
the  nation  must  be  believed  in  the  account  which 
it  has  given  us  of  its  history,  and  that  its  docu- 
mentar}^  literature  is  entitled  to  respedlful  and 
honorable  treatment. 

And  this  judgment  is  made  all  the  more  im- 
perative, when  we  consider  that  this  people  and 
its  literature  have  been  the  preachers  of  the 
world's  righteousness  and  redemption.  They 
have  given  us  the  I^aw  and  the  Gospel.  They 
have  given  us  Moses  and  Christ.  Such  men  are 
not  the  produdls  of  a  race  nourished  upon  false- 
hood. I  do  not  say  that  as  a  bar  to  criticism. 
I  want  such  criticism  to  be  thorough  and  search- 


CRITICISM   AND   COMMON   SKNSK.  I9I 

ing,  but  I  insist  that  an  irreverent  and  slanderous 
criticism  should  be  resented  by  every  man  who 
finds  any  good  in  Christianity,  and  who  does  not 
believe  that  men  have  been  dupes  and  fools  for 
two  and  a  half  milleniums.  ' '  Prove  all  things, ' ' 
yes,  but  do  not  forget  what  follows  :  **  Holdfast 
that  which  is  good. ' '  There  is  none  too  much  of  it 
in  the  world ! 


CHAPTER    VI. 
The  Historic  Faith. 

"I^et  us  therefore,  as  many  as  be  per- 
fect, be  thus  minded;  and  if  in  any- 
thing ye  be  otherwise  minded,  God 
shall  reveal  even  this  unto  you.  Never- 
theless, whereto  we  have  already 
attained,  let  us  walk  by  the  same  rule, 
let  us  mind  the  same  thing." 

— Philippians  iii.  :  15-16. 

Wk  are  all  more  or  less  disposed,  at  times  at 
least,  to  yield  to  the  temptation  against  which  the 
Christians  in  Philippi  were  earnestly  and  affec- 
tionately warned  —  magnifying  the  things  in. 
which  we  differ,  and  ignoring  or  underestimating 
the  things  in  which  we  agree.  To  many  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity  seems  hardly  more  than  a 
sad  succession  of  bitter  controversies,  rending  the 
seamless  garment  of  the  unity  for  which  our 
Lord  prayed  ;  and  the  prophets  of  what  is  called 
organic  unity  do  not  seem  to  meet  with  much 
encouragement.  Not  only  is  Christendom  divi- 
ded ;  but  Christendom  seems  determined  to  remain 


THE   HISTORIC   FAITH.  1 93 

divided.  Rome  extends  the  olive  branch  of  peace 
to  the  Greek  Church  ;  but  the  Greek  Church 
answers  with  loft}^  disdain.  Canterbury  makes 
advances  to  the  Greek  Church,  and  to  the  Roman 
Church  ;  both  answer  in  the  negative  with  almost 
brutal  frankness.  The  House  of  Bishops  presents 
a  plan  of  union  for  all  the  forces  of  Protestantism  ; 
and  when  we  come  to  examine  it,  it  simply  means, 
in  plain  English,  that  if  we  will  consent  to  receive 
episcopal  confirmation  and  ordination,  we  may  all 
come  into  the  Episcopal  Church.  Meanwhile, 
the  Baptist  quietly  tells  us  that  he  cannot  consent 
to  enter  into  such  a  partnership,  unless  we  are  all 
immersed,  and  surrender  infant  baptism.  The 
lion  is  perfedlly  willing  that  the  lamb  and  he  shall 
lie  down  together,  if  only  the  poor  lamb  will  con- 
sent to  lie  inside  the  lion.  All  this  provokes  the 
scorn  of  some,  and  it  pains  many  more.  It  seems 
as  if  Christians  did  not  care  to  be  one. 

THE   TRUE    UNITY. 

But  sometimes  we  search  among  the  stars  for 
that  which  lies  at  our  feet.  In  the  Republic  of 
Plato,  Socrates  starts  the  question  "  What  is  Jus- 


194  O^I^  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

tice  ? ' '  and  a  long  debate  ensuCvS,  in  which  the 
participants  become  confused  ;  when  suddenly  the 
great  teacher  cries  :  "  So  here  it  lies  at  our  feet  — 
justice  is  simply  every  man  doing  his  own  work. ' ' 
I  am  afraid  that  many  of  us  are  making  the  same 
mistake.  The  angel  of  unity  is  our  pillar  of 
cloud  and  fire,  and  always  has  been  ;  and  we 
know  it  not.  We  ache  and  pray  for  that  which 
has  already  come.  Can  it  be  that  our  Lord's 
pra3^er  has  remained  unanswered  all  these  centu- 
ries? For  m3^self,  at  least,  the  years  have  taught 
me,  that  we  need  to  say  "  we  are  one,'"  as  well  as 
to  pray  that  we  may  be  one.  I  have  learned  that 
the  unities  of  the  Christian  faith  are  more  mighty 
and  majestic  than  the  differences.  I  have  grasped 
the  hand  of  many  a  Roman  Catholic  la3'man  and 
priest,  when  at  the  clasp  of  palms  and  mutual 
greetings  the  yawning  chasm  vanished  ;  and  if  I 
had  to  choose  between  Pope  Leo  XIII.,  and  Con- 
fucius, I  should  not  hesitate  a  moment. 

UNIFORMITY    IMPOSSIBLE. 

But  look  at  the  warring  se(fts,  you  say.     It  is, 
I  confess,  a  pitiable  sight.      But  point  me  to  the 


THE   HISTORIC   FAITH.  1 95 

time,  if  you  can,  when  sharp  differences  did  not 
exist.  You  cannot.  They  were  as  pronounced 
and  fierce  in  the  apostolic  churches  as  they  are  to- 
day. A-  decade  had  scarcely  passed  when  a 
council  had  to  be  called  at  Jerusalem,  and  the 
famous  decrees  settled  nothing.  They  were  a 
rope  of  sand.  The  fire  blazed  out  anew  at 
Antioch,  and  it  became  a  conflagration  in  the 
churches  of  Galatia,  rousing  Paul  into  unwonted 
wrath  —  when  he  hurled  anathemas  upon  his 
opponents.  The  word  ''nevertheless,'"  in  Paul's 
exhortation  to  the  Philippians,  is  an  open  win- 
dow, through  which  we  discover  that  controversy 
was  not  unknown  in  Philippi  even.  It  rent  the 
church  at  Corinth  into  parties.  In  ever}^  epistle 
the  same  fa 61  obtrudes.  There  have  alwaj^s  been 
sharp  do(5lrinal  and  ritual  differences,  and  there 
always  w^ill  be.  But  these  very  differences,  when 
traced  to  their  root,  will  alwaj^s  be  found  to  have 
been  fibered  upon  a  unity  of  confession,  which, 
like  the  tides  of  the  sea,  has  carried  all  before  it. 
Honest  differences  of  opinion  are  not  ground 
for  despondency.  They  are  inevitable,  where 
thought  is  vital.     They  could  not  be  prevented  if 


196  OI.D   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

we  tried  ;  and  we  ought  not  to  try,  if  we  were 
sure  of  success.  Dead  men  do  not  quarrel  ;  but 
a  lively  debating  society  is  better  than  a  grave- 
yard. We  might  as  well  complain  that  light  is 
not  one,  because  it  breaks  into  the  colors  of  the 
rainbow.  Light  is  a  wizard,  gifted  with  infinite 
sleight  of  hand,  as  it  broods  over  cloud,  and 
mountain,  and  sea,  performing  a  thousand  fantas- 
tic feats  ;  but  in  its  invisible  ground  it  is  alwaj^s 
the  same.  The  same  pulsations  in  the  air  create 
the  sighing  of  the  wind,  the  roar  of  the  breakers, 
the  crash  of  the  thunder-peal,  the  cry  of  agony, 
the  sweet  song  of  nightingale  and  lark  ;  and  the 
same  pulsations  weave  the  ever  fleeting  colors 
with  which  the  universe  is  radiant.  So  there 
come  times  in  the  history  of  a  people  when  some 
great  crisis  snaps  the  ties  of  party  allegiance  ; 
and,  as  when  the  ocean  is  laid  bare  by  a  vStorm, 
we  see  the  common  patriotism  which  is  the  bed- 
rock of  national  unity.  We  are  always  dividing, 
and  we  divide  without  loss  of  unity.  It  must 
always  be  so. 

It  is  the  law  of  the  human  mind.     It  is  more. 
It  is  the  law  of  God,     He  does  not  live  on  the 


the:  historic  faith.  197 

dead  level  of  uniformity.  He  is  one,  but  He  is 
also  infinite.  His  reason  is  immutable,  but  His 
thoughts  are  multitudinous,  and  past  finding  out. 
Their  apparent  antagonisms,  crowding  to  the 
front  in  every  sphere,  confound  us.  His  power 
and  wdll  are  one  ;  but  His  executive  acfts  are 
infinite.  The  eternal  unity  direcfts  the  endless 
manifestations.  And  the  law  of  His  personal 
being  is  inserted  into  the  work  of  His  hands.  As 
we  mount  from  lowest  to  highCvSt,  in  the  scale  of 
being,  the  differences  multiply.  One  drop  of 
water  is  like  every  other  drop  ;  all  grains  of  sand 
are  alike  ;  but  even  these  take  on  endless  forms 
in  coast  outline  and  mountain  aspect.  With  life 
a  greater  diversity  appears.  The  unity  breaks 
out  into  an  endless  variety  of  form  and  color.  The 
unity  breaks  out,  it  does  not  break  np.  No  two 
leaves  are  alike,  growing  from  the  same  stem. 
No  two  flowers  are  alike,  growing  from  the  same 
slender  and  swaying  stock.  In  the  human  body 
the  differentiation  reaches  its  highest  known 
form.  In  the  human  brain  alone  there  are  said 
to  be  two  thousand  million  cells.  It  would  take 
seventy -five  years  to  count  them,  with  three  hun- 


I9«  OI.D    TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

dred  and  vsixty-five  working  da3'S  of  ten  hours 
each.  The  complexity  is  bewildering  to  the 
keenest  eye  ;  the  unity  is  patent  to  all.  We 
seek  for  uniformity  in  Christian  thought ;  when, 
to  secure  it,  would  be  to  cut  ourselves  loose  from 
the  law  of  the  universe,  and  from  the  law  of  God. 
It  is  not  the  elimination  of  differences  which  we 
are  to  jseek  ;  but  the  maintenance  of  unit}^  in  the 
differences, —  walking  b}-  the  .same  rule,  minding 
—  that  is  intent  upon  —  the  same  thing.  The 
rule  is  Christ ;  the  thing  is  our  salvation. 

THE    HISTORIC    FAITH. 

There  is  a  common  Christian  creed.  There  is 
an  immutable  Christian  confession.  It  nev6r  has 
been  eclipsed,  and  it  never  can  be.  There  is  an 
apostolic  unity  which  has  never  been  broken  ; 
and  its  main  features  are  easily  traced.  There  is 
but  one  foundation  ;  none  other  can  be  laid  ;  and 
no  church  has  ever  ventured  to  build  upon  any 
other.  Let  us  briefly  trace  its  outlines.  I^et  me 
enumerate  a  few  of  the  great  common  Christian 
convi(5lions,  compared  with  which  our  differences 
are  trivial. 


'The  historic  faith.  199 

MONOTHEISM. 

And  first,  there  is  the  fundamental  confession 
of  the  One,  Living,  Only  True  God.  Monothe- 
ism has  been  the  creed  of  our  infancy.  It  is  in 
the  air  we  ])reathe.  But  monotheism  represents 
the  most  radical  and  far-reaching  intelledlual 
revolution  which  history  records.  The  first  verse 
of  Genesis  is  the  simplest  and  the  sublimest 
sentence  ever  written  by  the  hand  of  man  ;  —  and 
Israel's  great  achievement  is  that  its  monothe- 
istic confession  has  displaced  idolatry  and  poly- 
theism. The  conception  of  God  as  personal,  as 
self-existent,  self-conscious,  and  self-revealing,  is 
basic  and  determining  in  religion.  Its  sharp  ac- 
centuation is  the  universal  and  permanent  need. 
For  while  idolatry  and  polytheism  have  disap- 
peared, the  ghost  of  pantheism  lingers.  In  much 
of  our  poetry  and  philosophy,  God  figures  only 
as  the  ground  of  being,  as  impersonal  and  un- 
conscious force,  as  blind  energy  or  will,  as  an. 
Infinite  //,  rather  than  the  eternal  I  am.  "/  AM, ' ' 
that  is  God, —  self-conscious,  self-consistent,  self- 
revealing  ;  as  personal  and  individual,  as  am 
I.      The    lines    of    battle    have  raged   between 


200  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER  EIRE. 

transcendence  and  immanence.  I  care  very  little 
for  the  words.  What  I  want  to  know  is,  whether 
above  the  world  or  in  it,  God  islam,  personal 
Being.  For  if  God  be  self-conscious  and  self- 
revealing  personal  Being, —  the  path  is  open  be- 
tween Him  and  me.  He  can  speak  to  me,  and  I 
can  pray  to  Him.  Religion  vanishes  if  man  can- 
not come  to  God  ;  and  revelation  vanishes  if  God 
cannot  come  to  man  ;  both  religion  and  revela- 
tion are  secure  if  God  be  the  Eternal  /  am,  self- 
conscious  and  self-revealing.  And  in  these  days, 
when  theosophy  makes  dupes  of  some,  and 
monism  entangles  others,  both  of  them  thinly 
disguised  pantheism,  the  breezy  and  invigorating 
Christian  affirmation  of  God  as  the  Living  One 
needs  sharp  and  continuous  utterance. 

THE    LAW    OF     GOD. 

Equally  important  and  valuable  is  the  common 
Christian  confession,  that  the  Personal  God  is 
supreme  and  sovereign.  His  will  is  the  Law  of 
the  universe.  To  that  will  all  must  bow  in  glad 
obedience.  It  is  not  an  arbitrar}^  will.  It  is  not 
an  artificial  law.      The  will  and  the  law  are  the 


THK    HISTORIC    FAITH.  20I 

expression  of  Infinite  Reason.  They  cannot  be 
other  than  they  are.  And  hence  they  are  immut- 
able. The}^  cannot  be  changed  by  a  jot  or  tittle. 
We  must  measure  up  to  their  level.  The  law  of 
God  is  holy  and  good.  Its  requirements  are 
beneficent.  We  think  of  Duty  as  a  burden  and 
a  badge  of  service  ;  Duty  is  the  dignity  of  ra- 
tional existence,  and  our  badge  of  honor.  It  is 
Duty  which  makes  us  divine.  It  is  the  con- 
science of  Duty  which  make  the  difference  be- 
tween stars  and  souls  ;  and  the  glory  of  a  soul 
is  when  it  moves  without  weariness  and  with 
gladness  in  the  orbit  of  Duty.  The  ought 
makes  our  manhood  and  womanhood.  There 
never  was  a  great  nature  without  reverence  for 
the  law  of  God.  There  never  was  a  great  nation 
without  reverence  for  righteousness.  Need  I 
refer  to  the  widespread  disregard  of  law,  and  con- 
tempt for  it  ?  Statutes  are  defied  and  evaded  as 
soon  as  the}^  are  enacfted.  Men  talk  as  if  law 
could  be  made  and  unmade  at  will,  without 
any  reference  to  the  eternal  verities  embodied  in 
nature  and  in  the  soul  of  man.  There  is  slight 
reverence  for  legislatures,  for  Congress,  for  judi- 


202  OI.D   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

cial  decisions  ;  and  the  contempt  is  often  justifi- 
able. All  the  greater  is  the  need  that  the  majesty 
of  the  moral  law  should  suffer  no  eclipse.  There 
are  some  things  which  cannot  be  defied.  The 
law  of  God  cannot  be  trampled  upon  with  impu- 
nity. Its  violation  is  a  crime  of  the  highest  mag- 
nitude. It  is  rebellion,  and  it  is  suicide.  The 
way  of  obedience  is  the  way  of  life.  All  crave  to 
be  happy,  but  there  can  be  no  blessedness,  here 
or  hereafter,  imless  it  grow  upon  the  fiber  of 
holiness. 

CHRIST    THE    ONLY   SAVIOR. 

A  third  great  confession  in  which  Christendom 
has  alwa3^s  been  agreed,  is  that  Jesus  Christ  came 
to  save  sinners.  The  law  condemns  us  all,  so 
that  there  is  no  difference.  We  are  shut  up  to 
the  undeserv'ed  mercy  of  God.  By  grace  must 
we  be  saved.  Not  merely  pardoned,  but  re- 
newed, and  cleansed,  and  sancftified  in  body,  soul, 
and  spirit.  For  Christ  does  not  set  aside  the  law 
of  God.  He  fulfils  it  in  Himself,  and  dwelling  in 
us  by  His  Spirit  He  fulfils  it  in  us.  Faith 
in  Christ  is  surrender  to  Him.  Surrender  to 
Him  is  making  His  will  our  own.     He  always 


THK   HISTORIC    FAITH.  203 

willed  what  the  law  of  God  enadled  ;  and  if  we 
surrender  our  will  to  His  will,  we  will  what  the 
law  of  God  enadls.  That  frees  us  from  the  Law 
as  a  taskmaster,  and  that  is  the  only  way  out  of 
bondage.  We  must  will  what  the  law  enjoins. 
But  that  is  only  the  first  step.  To  will  what  the 
Law  enjoins  is  one  thing  ;  to  do  what  we  thus 
will  is  a  very  different  thing.  For  the  will  in 
every  one  of  us  is  weak.  But  the  faith  by  which 
we  trust  in  Him,  and  surrender  ourselves  to 
Him,  allies  us  to  the  perfedl  obedience  which  His 
will  secured.  There  is  no  magic  in  the  process. 
It  is  simply  the  power  of  His  personal  influence, 
steadily  exerted  upon  our  obedient  minds  and 
hearts.  With  open  face  beholding  Him,  we  are 
changed  into  His  image.  The  change  is  not  of 
our  production  ;  He  changes  us  ;  but  we  must  fix 
our  eyes  upon  Him.  We  must  abide  in  Him,  as 
the  branch  abides  in  the  vine.  This  is  no  theory 
of  the  atonement.  In  the  philosophy  of  redemp- 
tion there  has  been  no  agreement.  But  in  this 
there  has  been  agreement,  that  our  hope  of  salva- 
tion, here  and  hereafter,  is  based  solely  upon  the 
mediatorial  work  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God. 


204  OLD   TESTAME^NT   UNDKR   FIRK. 

There  recently  came  to  my  notice  a  very  re- 
markable illustration  of  what  Chalmers  calls 
"  the  expulsive  power  of  a  new  affe(5lion."  It  is 
said  of  Dr.  Paxson,  for  many  years  conne(fted 
with  the  American  Sunday-School  Union,  that  he 
was  a  very  dull  scholar  at  school.  The  teacher 
finally  gave  up  in  despair,  and  wrote  his  mother 
that  the  boy  could  not  learn  the  multiplication 
table,  and  might  as  well  be  kept  at  home.  It 
nearly  broke  his  mother's  heart.  He  found  her 
crying  bitterly.  The  curly-haired,  blue-eyed, 
mischievous,  fun-loving,  but  affecftionate  child 
wanted  to  know  what  the  trouble  was.  And 
when  she  told  him,  he  cried  out  :  "  Don't  cry, 
you  will  break  my  heart  ;  I  did  not  suppose  yozi 
cared,  I  did  not  think  that  you  wanted  me  to 
learn  the  multiplication  table.  I  will  learn  it  by 
to-morrow  night."  And  he  did,  to  the  amaze- 
ment of  the  teacher,  who  came  after  a  while  to 
regard  the  boy  as  a  mathematical  prodigy.  Love 
fulfilled  the  law.  What  the  schoolmaster  could 
not  secure  by  authoritj^,  the  mother  secured  by 
her  tears.  And  the  Law  of  God  is  our  school- 
master, leading  us  to  Christ,  the  might  of  whose 


( 


THK   HISTORIC   FAITH.  205 

unspeakable  love  subdues  us  into  obedience  to  the 
Law. 

THE    AUTHORITY    OF    THE    BIBLE. 

It  may  seem  a  matter  of  serious  challenge  to 
say,  that  a  fourth  great  confession,  in  which  there 
has  been  unbroken  unanimity,  is  the  pre-eminent 
and  peculiar  value  of  the  Bible  as  a  guide  in 
religion,  and  as  a  record  of  the  revelation  of  God 
to  men.  It  may  be  objedled  that,  on  the  one 
hand,  the  Roman  Catholic  communion  does  not 
recognize  the  infallible  authority  of  Holy  Scrip- 
ture ;  and  that,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are  many 
in  the  ranks  of  Protestantism  who  by  their 
critical  methods  have  reduced  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  to  a  confused  mass  of  fable  and  fraud. 
But  this  is  an  overstatement  in  both  direcftions. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Church  is  thoroughly  ortho- 
dox on  the  dodlrine  of  Scripture.  The  present 
Pope  has  proclaimed  himself  to  be  the  advocate  of 
the  most  strenuous  theory  of  verbal  and  plenary 
inspiration.  The  Bible,  for  the  Roman  Church, 
is  the  Word  of  God.  The  debate  between  Rome 
and  us  concerns  two  things,  the  authority  of 
tradition,  and  the  organ  of  interpretation.      The 


2o6  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

only  authority  acknowledged  by  us  is  that  of 
Scripture.  Rome  claims  coordinate  and  comple- 
mentary authority  for  apostolic  tradition,  pre- 
served in  institutions  and  customs,  of  which  there 
is  no  mention  in  the  written  documents  of  the 
New  Testament.  A  second  matter  in  debate  con- 
cerns the  right  of  private  interpretation.  We  are 
committed  to  the  dodlrine  of  private  judgment  in 
religion,  to  the  freest  and  most  fearless  study  of 
the  Bible  by  men  of  every  class.  Rome  contends 
that  the  priesthood  is  the  guardian  of  the  faith, 
that  Councils  and  Papal  decrees  determine  what 
the  Scriptures  really  teach,  and  that  the  decisions 
of  the  hierarchy  must  be  accepted  as  final.  We 
believe  in  an  infallible  book  interpreted  by  fallible 
men  ;  Rome  believes  in  an  infallible  book  inter- 
preted by  an  order  of  infallible  men.  Such,  too, 
is  pradlically  the  dodlrinal  position  of  the  Greek 
Church. 

As  for  the  claims  of  Protestant  criticism  of  the 
Scriptures,  however  impatient  we  may  be  with  it 
—  and  for  the  greater  part  it  is,  in  my  judgment, 
petty  and  shallow  —  it  is  only  fair  to  say  that 
many  of  the  critics  claim   not   to   diminish  the 


THK   HISTORIC    FAITH.  207 

religious  authority  of  the  Bible,  but  only  to  mod- 
ify the  traditional  notions  of  its  inspiration  and 
historical  inerrancy.  To  use  a  somewhat  in- 
elegant figure,  there  is  more  bark  than  bite  in  this" 
dog.  It  is  only  the  frightened  man  who  gets 
hurt.  The  docftrine  of  inspiration,  as  so  conser- 
vative a  theologian  as  the  late  Dr.  Chalmers 
frankly  admitted,  has  never  been  definitel}'  form- 
ulated ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  it  ever 
can  be.  It  really  belongs  to  .speculative  divinity. 
The  only  pradlical  question  is  whether  the  state- 
ments of  fa6t  and  of  do(5lrine,  given  in  the  Scrip- 
tures, are  trustworthy  and  authoritative  in  the 
realm  of  faith  and  condudl.  I  am  not  aware  that 
such  authority  is  denied  them,  except  by  those 
w^ho  are  avowedly  hostile  to  Christianity,  or  by 
those  who  have  hastily  yielded  to  the  clamor  of 
the  new  critical  school,  and  their  attitude  need 
not  greatly  concern  us.  The  pradlical  value  of 
Scripture  is  universally  acknowledged.  We  may  as 
well  let  the  critics  alone.  They  will  decimate 
each  others  ranks.  There  will  not  be  a  new 
Bible,  nor  will  the  old  Bible  pass  away.  The 
great  body  of  the  people  will  continue  to  read 


208  OIvD   TKSTAMKNT  UNDKR   FIRI^, 

their  Bibles  in  the  same  good  old  way.  They 
have  a  feeling  that  the  old  prophets  and  apostles 
—  Moses  and  Isaiah,  Paul  and  John  —  knew 
vastly  more  about  religion,  and  religious  history, 
than  the  critics  who  are  on  a  still  hunt  for  Elo- 
hists,  and  Jahvists,  and  Redadlors.  And  we 
may  as  well  read  our  Bibles  as  Timothy  was 
exhorted  to  read  it,  with  the  desire  and  purpose 
to  be  made  wise  unto  salvation.  I  am  not  going 
to  wait  for  the  New  Bible.  I  am  sure  it  will  be 
worthless,  when  it  does  come.  The  Old  is  not 
only  good  enough  ;  it  cannot  be  improved  ;  and 
every  attempt  to  reconstrudl  it  has  resulted  in 
collapse.  Universal  Christendom  stands  firm  on 
the  Rock  of  Holy  Scripture. 

EVANGELIZATION. 

Christendom  is  agreed  in  another  confession, 
that  the  present  life  is  the  sphere  within  which 
the  gospel  is  to  secure  its  triumph.  We  are  not 
to  sit  still,  sing  psalms,  and  wait  for  heaven. 
We  are  to  do  with  our  might  what  our  hands  find 
to  do.  We  are  to  make  our  lives  heavenly,  and 
prepare  the  way  of  the  lyord  in  all  the  earth.  And 


THK   HISTORIC   FAITH.  209 

the  way  of  the  Lord  is  righteousness,  peace,  and 
joy,  in  the  Holy  Ghost.  Christ  is  to  dwell  in 
our  hearts  by  faith,  and  so  fashion  us  into  His 
likeness ;  and,  thus  fashioned,  we  are  to  fill  the 
earth  with  the  word  and  power  of  His  salvation. 
Christianity  binds  us  to  the  immediate  conquest 
of  the  world  by  the  gospel.  The  missionary 
spirit  is  its  beating  heart,  and  animating  breath. 
There  is  nothing  for  which  I  long  so  much,  as  a 
profound  and  universal  revival  of  missionary  en- 
thusiasm, at  home  and  abroad.  The  flag  sil- 
ences party  clamor.  The  cross,  as  our  banner 
of  conquest,  will  draw  our  diverging  lines  to- 
gether, and  cement  us  into  the  only  unity  worth 
having.  And  in  the  earnest  grapple,  with  the 
world,  we  shall  learn  soonest  what  is  primary 
and  essential,  and  what  is  subordinate  and 
incidental.  Work  will  simplify  and  solidify 
our  thinking.  We  have  wasted  our  time  in 
ornamenting,  and  polishing  the  scabbard,  within 
which  the  sword  has  rusted,  —  let  us  draw 
the  gleaming  blade,  and  throw  the  sheath 
away  ! 


210  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

THE    ETERNAL    GLORY. 

And  yet,  our  vision  is  not  bounded  by  time. 
We  preach  Jesus,  and  the  resurrection ;  the 
Risen  Christ  as  the  first-fruits  of  all  that  sleep, 
on  land,  and  in  the  sea.  Christianity  lives,  and 
moves,  and  has  its  being,  in  eternity, — in  the 
eternity  which  never  began,  and  which  never 
ends.  The  God  in  whom  we  believe  is  fironi  ever- 
lasting to  everlasting.  The  Law  which  we  honor 
can  never  become  obsolete.  It  will  remain,  when 
heaven  and  earth  shall  have  passed  away.  The 
Savior  in  whom  we  trust  has  conquered  death, 
bringing  life  and  immortality  to  light,  showing 
us  that  corruption  must  put  on  incorruption,  and 
the  grave  become  the  cradle  of  an  endless  life. 
The  Risen  lyord  is  our  leader,  whom  we  follow 
into  the  gloom  of  the  sepulcher,  that  we  may 
emerge  with  Him  into  the  glory  of  the  unending 
day.  Everything  in  the  Christian  confession  is 
keyed  to  immortality  and  eternal  blessedness. 
There  shall  come  an  end  to  weakness  and  weari- 
ness, an  end  to  pain  and  tears  ;  while  the  songs 
of  our  pilgrimage  shall  swell  into  the  unending 
psalm  of  victory  and  joy  ! 


THK   HISTORIC   FAITH.  211 

CONCLUSION. 

That  God  is  personal  and  living,  that  His  law 
is  sovereign  and  immutable,  that  Jesus  Christ 
came  to  save  sinners,  that  the  Scriptures  are  able 
to  make  us  wise  unto  salvation,  that  the  kingdom 
of  God  is  to  cover  the  earth,  and  that  our  citizen- 
ship in  it  makes  us  heirs  of  eternal  glory, — these 
are  some  of  the  things  in  which  we  are  all  agreed. 
They  are  the  great  things  ;  and  by  that  rule,  let 
us  walk  ! 


CHAPTER   VII. 
The  Integrity  of  the  New  Testament. 

"  The  testimony  of  the  L,ord  is  sure." 
—Psalm  xix :  7. 

Thk  nineteenth  psalm  naturally  falls  into  two 
parts;  the  first  dealing  with  the  revelation  of  God 
in  His  works,  the  second  with  the  revelation  of 
God  in  His  Word.  The  visible  universe  presents 
no  object  more  prominent  than  the  sun,  whose 
light  and  heat  are  the  universal  and  inexhaust- 
ible source  of  physical  well  being.  We  can  con- 
ceive of  no  calamity  more  overwhelming  and  irre- 
mediable, than  the  sun's  extindlion.  Horace 
Bushnell's  vivid  description  of  such  a  possible 
catastrophe  will  be  recalled  by  every  one  who 
has  read  it :  "  Let  the  light  of  the  morning  cease 
and  return  no  more,  let  the  hour  of  morning 
come,  and  bring  with  it  no  dawn  :  the  outcries 
of  a  horror-stricken  world  fill  the  air,  and  make, 
as  it  were,  the  darkness  audible.  The  beasts  go 
wild  and  frantic  at    the  loss  of  the  sun.      The 


INTEGRITY  OF  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.     213 

vegetable  growths  turn  pale  and  die.  A  chill 
creeps  on,  and  frosty  winds  begin  to  howl  across 
the  freezing  earth.  Colder,  and  yet  colder,  is 
the  night.  The  vital  blood,  at  length,  of  all 
creatures,  stops  congealed.  Down  goes  the  frost 
to  the  earth's  center.  The  heart  of  the  sea  is 
frozen  ;  nay,  the  earthquakes  are  themselves 
frozen  in,  under  their  fiery  caverns.  The  very 
globe  itself,  too,  and  all  the  fellow  planets  that 
have  lost  their  sun,  are  become  mere  balls  of  ice, 
swinging  silent  in  the  darkness.  Such  is  the 
light,  which  revisits  us  in  the  silence  of  the 
morning. ' ' 

A  similar  prominence  for  man's  higher  life  is 
frequently  attributed  to  the  Word  of  God.  It  is 
a  lamp.  It  is  light.  It  is  the  sun  of  the 
soul,  giving  light  and  life,  ministering  illu- 
mination and  inspiration.  It  is  represented 
as  the  fixed  and  immovable  center  of  Divine 
truth,  "forever  settled  in  heaven."  It  pro- 
vides the  basis  of  an  infallible  certainty  ;  just 
as  the  sun,  by  its  invisible,  but  constant  and 
efficient,  energy,  secures  the  stability  of  the  plan- 
etary system.     Such  a  basis  there  must  be  some- 


214  OLD   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   EIRK. 

where,  if  our  religious  convicftions  and  hopes  are 
to  be  anything  more  than  the  creations  of  indi- 
vidual and  diseased  fancy  ;  and  it  would  seem 
as  if  we  must  choose  between  an  infallible  con- 
sciousness, an  infallible  church,  and  an  infallible 
book.  The  first  gives  us  rationalism  or  mysti- 
cism, in  which  every  man  is  regarded  as  either 
hopelessly  ignorant,  or  virtually  omniscient ;  the 
second  gives  us  traditionalism  or  Romanism,  in 
which  we  believe  upon  the  authority  of  the 
church,  and  of  its  constituted  officers,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  define  the  faith,  and  to  save  our 
souls  ;  the  third  is  the  platform  of  evangelical 
Protestantism,  which  exalts  the  Bible  above  the 
individual  and  the  Church,  confessing  it  to  be  the 
sole  and  sufficient  authority  for  man's  religious 
faith  and  conduct. 

That  affirmation  forces  Biblical  criticism  to  the 
very  front  of  the  Christian  Sciences,  and  commits 
the  Protestant  household  of  faith  to  its  most 
assiduous  and  enthusiastic  cultivation.  Not 
scholars  alone,  but  every  intelligent  reader  of  the 
Bible,  needs  to  know,  on  what  ground  he  may 
affirm,  without  the  slightest  hesitation,  that  his 


INTEGRITY   OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT.     215 

hands  turn  the  leaves  of  a  book,  whose  origin 
dates  to  the  times  of  inspired  apostles  and  pro- 
phets ;  so  that  we  may  read  it  with  the  same 
eagerness  as  if  we  were  hearing  for  ourselves  the 
original  message,  or  as  if  we  locked  arms  with 
Abraham,  Moses,  Isaiah,  Paul,  and  Christ  Him- 
self. The  plain  Christian  accepts  the  Old  Testa- 
ment as  inspired  Scripture,  upon  the  authority  of 
Christ.  We  feel  that  it  is  safe  for  us  to  treat  and 
use  these  older  Scriptures,  as  He  treated  and  used 
them.  But  we  know  Jesus  Christ  only  through 
the  gospels  and  the  epistles.  This  pradlically 
narrows  down  the  critical  problem  to  the  New 
Testament.  Is  the  New  Testament  the  literary 
record  of  the  ancient  and  apostolic  testitnony  and 
interpretation,  or  is  it  the  produ(5t  of  a  later  age, 
mingling  fadl  and  fi(5lion,  giving  us  revelation  in 
the  garb  of  legend  and  romance  ?  What  evidence 
have  we  that  our  New  Testament  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  Christian  Churches  of  the  year  100, 
when  the  last  one  of  the  apostles  had  just  been 
buried  by  loving  hands  ?  A  brief  consideration 
of  the  answer  to  that  question  may  fitly  bring  our 
present  study  to  a  close. 


2l6  OLD   TKSTAMKNT  UNDER   FIRE. 

THE    PRESUMPTIVE    EVIDENCE. 

There  is,  first  of  all,  v^hat  may  be  called  the 
presumptive  evidence.  The  Nev^  Testament  is  in 
our  hands,  and  it  commands  a  reverence  which  is 
unique,  and  which  no  other  books  share  with  it. 
There  is  no  extravagance  in  saying  that  this  one 
little  volume  outweighs  in  importance,  in  the 
judgment  of  millions,  all  other  literary  treasures 
combined.  It  goes  where  no  other  book  gains 
entrance,  and  no  other  book  can  drive  it  out. 
And  yet,  it  is  a  stranger  in  the  great  literatures 
of  the  world.  It  is  not  the  producft  of  Hellenic 
genius,  nor  of  German  speculation,  nor  of  French 
art,  nor  of  Anglican  thought.  Its  preeminence 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  any  national  enthu- 
siasm ;  for  the  nation  from  whose  great  souls  it 
sprang,  is  the  one  nation  which  thus  far  has 
deliberately  scorned  its  message.  We  have  re- 
ceived it  at  the  hands  of  the  Jew,  whom  we 
despise  and  shun.  It  is  an  aJien  book  wdiich  has 
conquered  us,  and  for  which  we  are  prepared  to 
die. 

These  are  f:i(5ls  which  must  be  accounted  for. 
There  was  a  time  when  the  book  was  not.     How 


INTEGRITY   OF   THK   NEW   TESTAMENT.     217 

came  it  to  be  ?  And  not  only  must  the  book  be 
accounted  for,  but  there  must  be  some  good  and 
sufficient  explanation  of  the  singular  reverence 
and  aflfecftion,  which  this  little  volume  has  pro- 
voked, among  so  many  peoples,  and  through  so 
many  centuries,  in  hovels  and  palaces,  in  lowly 
cottages  and  seats  of  learning.  The  cause  cer- 
tainly must  be  equal  to  the  effe6l.  And  it  is  not 
simply  the  book  which  must  be  traced  to  its 
adequate  literary  origin,  but  the  unique  and  un- 
shared power  which  it  has  wielded  must  be 
associated  with  those  who  were  concerned  in  its 
produ(5lion.  They  could  not  have  been  weak 
men.  They  could  not  have  been  false  men. 
They  could  not  have  been  dreamers  and  de- 
ceivers. They  could  not  have  been  romancers 
and  enthusiasts.  For  their  words  have  made 
men  strong,  and  true,  and  clear- visioned,  and 
intensely  pradlical.  If  we  may  judge  the  tree  by 
its  fruits,  we  may  and  must  assume  that  whatever 
claims  the  New  Testament  makes  as  to  author- 
vship,  and  time  of  composition,  and  credibility  of 
contents,  are  pradlically  beyond  all  reasonable 
challenge. 


2i8         OI.D  te:stame:nt  undkr  firk. 

There  are  some  who  argue  as  if  time  had  not 
settled  some  things.  They  speak  in  the  tone  of 
universal  denial,  and  challenge  the  faith  of  the 
church  in  the  New  Testament,  as  if  that  chal- 
lenge had  not  been  met  a  hundred  times  before. 
Christianity  does  not  evade  the  challenge,  but  it 
would  seem  as  if  eighteen  hundred  years  of  con- 
troversy, of  heroic  suffering  and  costly  sacrifice, 
ought  to  have  given  to  the  New  Testament  an 
assured  standing.  Its  claims  must  be  accepted  as 
presumptively  true,  unless  they  can  be  shown  to 
be  false.  The  burden  of  proof  rests  upon  those 
who  deny  or  doubt  its  integrity  or  credibiUty. 
Denial  or  doubt,  in  the  face  of  this  long  tenure  of 
power,  and  in  contradidlion  of  what  the  book 
itself  afiirms,  is  little  less  than  impertinence.  It 
is  the  audacity  of  insolence.  It  might  as  well  be 
denied  that  Milton  wrote  ' '  Paradise  I^ost ;  "  for  if 
he  did  not  write  it,  as  he  claims  to  have  done, 
the  critic  is  bound  to  make  good  his  denial 
by  showing  who  did  write  it.  If  it  should  be 
said  that  no  one  now  living  could  vouch  for 
Milton's  having  lived,  and  written  the  poem, 
and   that   the   original  manuscript  could  not  be 


INTEGRITY   OF  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.     219 

produced,  men  would  wonder  whether  the  critic 
were  sane. 

Here,  now,  are  certain  books  or  pamphlets, 
some  of  them  attributed  by  ancient  and  uniform 
tradition  to  Matthew,  Mark,  and  lyuke,  and 
others  claiming  to  have  been  written  by  Paul,  and 
John,  and  James,  and  Peter.  The  presumption 
is  that  they  were  written  by  these  men,  unless  the 
contrary  can  be  clearly  established  beyond  all 
possible  question.  Denial  means  nothing  ;  dem- 
onstration must  be  forthcoming.  The  New  Tes- 
tament must  stand  as  an  authentic  book,  as  the 
creation  and  the  legacy  of  the  apostolic  age, 
which  it  claims  to  be,  unless  the  contrary  can  be 
made  out ;  and  such  a  thing  has  never  been  done. 
The  literature  of  the  first  three  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era  has  been  ransacked,  through  and 
through,  with  microscopic  minuteness,  hundreds 
of  times,  and  no  other  place  can  be  assigned  to 
the  New  Testament,  than  the  one  which  it  claims 
for  itself.  It  fits  into  the  first  century;  and  it  fits 
nowhere  else.  This  amounts  to  a  pradlical  dem- 
onstration, that  its  claim  is  true. 


220  OIvD   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

THE    DIRECT    EVIDENCE.    ' 

The  case  might  be  made  to  rest  here.  But  we 
may  proceed  to  the  direcft  evidence,  that  the  New 
Testament  belongs  to  the  first  and  apostolic  cen- 
tury of  our  era,  which  evidence  is  wonderfully 
varied  and  abundant.  The  printing  press  was 
used  for  the  first  time  in  the  middle  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  more  than  four  hundred  5^ears 
ago  ;  and  it  surely  needs  not  to  be  proved  that 
the  New  Testament  has  suffered  from  no  additions 
or  mutilations,  since  the  time  when  type  secured 
its  fixedness.  But  at  that  time  it  was  already  an 
old  book,  whose  manuscript  copies  had  been 
multiplied  by  the  labors  of  monks,  to  whose 
industry  we  owe  the  preservation  of  the  treasures 
of  ancient  literature. 

The  original  parchments  of  the  New  Testament 
books  have  perished,  and  the  earliest  transcrip- 
tions were  probably  destroyed  during  the  Domi- 
tian  persecution.  But  the  same  thing  is  true  of 
Homer's  poetr}^  of  Plato's  philosophy,  of  the 
entire  range  of  Greek  and  Roman  letters.  Few 
manuscripts  of  Greek  or  Roman  classics  are  older 
than  the  ninth  or  tenth  century  of  our  era.    There 


INTEGRITY    OF   THE    NEW    TESTAMENT.     221 

is  one  of  Virgil  dating  from  the  fourth  century; 
but  the  oldest  manuscript  copies  of  ^schylus 
and  of  Sophocles  date  from  the  tenth,  and  of 
Tacitus  from  the  eleventh,  century.  The  oldest 
complete  copy  of  Homer  is  from  the  thirteenth 
century.  And  the  number  of  such  manuscripts  is 
very  limited,  as  compared  with  those  containing 
the  New  Testament. 

The  extant  New  Testament  manuscripts  fall 
into  two  classes,  the  cursive  and  the  uncial. 
Cursive  manuscripts  are  those  which  are  written 
in  a  running  hand,  and  in  small  letters,  while 
uncial  manuscripts  are  wTitten  exclusively  in 
capital  letters.  Of  these  two  classes,  the  uncial 
manuscripts  are  the  oldest.  Of  the  cursive  manu- 
scripts, written  between  the  ninth  and  the  fifteenth 
centuries,  there  are  nearly  a  thousand,  thirty  of 
them  containing  the  entire  New  Testament ;  six 
hundred  containing  the  gospels  ;  two  hundred 
containing  the  A(5ls  and  the  Catholic  Epistles  ; 
three  hundred  containing  the  Epistles  of  Paul ; 
and  one  hundred  containing  the  Revelation  of 
John.  Beside  these,  there  are  eighty-three  uncial 
manuscripts,  dating  from  the  fourth  to  the  ninth 


222  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

centuries.  The  ninth  century  is  the  dividing  line 
between  uncial  and  cursive  writing  Of  the 
eighty-three  uncial  manuscripts,  the  oldest  is  the 
Codex  Vaticanus,  preserved  in  the  Vatican  library 
at  Rome,  and  dating  from  the  year  325.  Next  in 
age,  and  fully  equal  in  importance,  is  the  Codex 
Sinaiticus,  named  from  the  convent  at  Sinai, 
where  Tischendorf  discovered  and  rescued  it  in 
1859,  preserved  in  the  Imperial  library  at  St. 
Petersburg,  and  dating  from  the  year  340.  The 
Codex  Alexandrinus,  presented  by  the  Patriarch 
Cyril  Linear  of  Constantinople,  in  1628,  to  King 
Charles  I.,  and  preserved  in  the  British  Museum, 
was  probably  written  in  Alexandria  in  the  fifth 
century.  The  Codex  Regius,  preserved  in  Paris, 
also  belongs  to  the  fifth  century,  and  was  written 
in  Alexandria.  These  four  manuscripts  are  the 
oldest,  and  occupy  the  first  rank.  Of  these,  the 
Codex  Sinaiticus  alone  is  complete ;  but  the 
Codex  Vaticanus  is  the  oldest,  and  is  regarded 
by  most  critics  as  highest  in  authority.  Beside 
these  manuscripts,  there  are  over  four  hundred 
Ledlionaries,  of  which  about  seventy  are  uncials, 
containing   the  Scripture  lessons  read  in  public 


INTEGRITY   OF  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.     223 

worship,  compiled  from  the  Gospels  and  the 
Epistles.  The  total  number  of  all  manuscripts  is 
over  seventeen  hundred,  dating  from  A.  D.  325 
to  1450,  from  which  the  present  text  of  the  New 
Testament  has  been  compiled,  by  the  most  care- 
ful and  critical  comparison  and  sifting,  a  task 
begun  by  Erasmus  in  15 16,  and  continued  until 
our  own  time.  Three  hundred  and  eighty  years 
of  scholarly  research  have  been  devoted,  with 
unflagging  patience  and  enthusiasm,  to  this  work. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether  the  discovery  of  the 
original  autographs  would  prove  to  be  of  any 
material  value  for  the  correcflion  of  the  existing 
text. 

The  critical  or  diredl  evidence  is  simply  over- 
whelming, when  compared  with  that  on  the 
ground  of  which  we  accept  the  Greek  and  the 
Roman  classics.  And  the  earliCvSt  manuscript  is 
substantially  the  same  as  our  New  Testament. 
The  various  readings,  which  amount  to  over  a 
hundred  thousand,  are  for  the  greater  part  insig- 
nificant, corresponding  to  typographical  errors, 
and  mistakes  in  proof-reading,  in  our  time  ;  and 
not  more  than  four  hundred  materially  affecft  the 


224  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE- 

narrative  ;  while  not  a  single  one  modifies,  in  the 
slightest  degree,  any  docftrine  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  In  facft,  the  various  readings  have  been 
an  incalculable  help  to  critical  scholars,  as  by 
comparison  they  have  provided  the  means  of  their 
own  corre(5lion,  while  they  have  served  to  show 
how  widely  and  numerously  manuscript  copies  of 
the  New  Testament  must  have  been  in  circula- 
tion, from  a  very  early  day. 

THE    CORROBORATIVE    EVIDENCE. 

The  corroborative  evidence  for  the  fadl  that  the 
New  Testament  belongs  to  the  literature  of  the 
first  century  of  the  Christian  era,  and  so  gives  us 
an  authoritative  account  of  the  origin  of  Christi- 
anity, is  hardly  less  varied,  abundant,  and  con- 
vincing. Our  literatures  are,  for  the  most  part, 
limited  in  their  reputation  and  influence.  Even 
a  national  circulation  is  the  exceptional  fa(5l. 
When  a  book  appears  in  a  translation,  and 
wins  its  way  among  readers  of  another  tongue, 
the  tribute  to  its  worth  is  unmistakable.  Such 
translations  of  the  New  Testament  are  found  to 
have  existed  in  Armenia,  in  Syria,  in  Northern 


INTKGRITY  OF  THK   NKW  TKSTAMKNT.     225 

Africa,  in  Ethiopia,  and  in  Germany,  at  a  very 
early  day,  antedating  the  oldest  preserved  uncial 
manuscript.  While,  however,  the  translations 
or  versions  carry  us  farther  back  than  the  oldest 
uncial  manuscripts,  we  are  indebted  for  our  know- 
ledge of  the  versions  themselves  to  copies,  not 
one  of  which  is  as  old  as  the  fourth  century. 
These  versions,  or  translations,  were  numerous, 
and  are  located  in  widely  separated  centers.  The 
most  important  are  the  Old  I^atin,  current  in 
Northern  Africa,  and  dating  from  the  middle  of 
the  second  century  ;  the  Peshito,  or  Syriac,  very 
famous  and  influential,  justly  called  *' the  queen 
of  ancient  versions,"  still  read  in  the  Syrian 
churches,  and  held  in  the  highest  esteem  by 
scholars  for  its  accurracy  and  force,  dating  in  its 
present  form  from  the  fourth  century,  the  present 
form  being,  however,  a  careful  revision  of  an 
older  version  ;  the  Egyptian  or  Coptic  versions, 
of  which  there  are  three,  in  different  dialedls,  in- 
dependent of  each  other,  and  dating  from  the  sec- 
ond century  ;  the  Ethiopic  or  Abyssinian,  praised 
by  Dillmann  for  its  fidelity  and  smoothness,  and 
dating  from  the  fourth  century  ;  the  Gothic,  trans- 


226  OLD  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

lated  by  Ulphilas,  the  apostle  of  Christianity  to 
the  Goths,  invaders  of  Rome  and  destroyers  of 
its  proud  empire,  and  dating  from  the  fourth 
century  ;  the  Armenian  version,  dating  from  the 
fifth  century  ;  and  the  famous  Vulgate,  the  first 
book  ever  printed,  at  Mayence,  by  Gutenburg 
and  Fust,  in  1455,  translated  from  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Greek  by  Jerome  in  405,  displacing  the 
Old  lyatin  Version,  and  for  nearly  fifteen  hundred 
years  the  recognized  translation  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church. 

Here,  then,  there  are  translations,  and  even 
revisions,  within  one  and  two  hundred  years  after 
John's  death,  and  these  from  widely  separated 
quarters,  undertaken  and  carried  through  inde- 
pendently, to  meet  an  urgent  demand.  These 
versions  appear  in  rapid  succession  in  Northern 
and  Central  Africa,  in  Syria,  in  the  mountains  of 
Armenia,  along  the  northern  shores  of  the  Black 
Sea  ;  and  wherever  they  appear,  the  apostolic 
origin  and  authority  are  assumed. 

Again,  the  controversial  and  explanatory  litera- 
ture, which  a  book  provokes,  helps  us  in  estimat- 
ing its  value,  and  locating  its  first  appearance. 


INTEGRITY   OF  THK   NEW  TESTAMENT.     227 

The  early  Christian  literature,  in  sermons,  and 
commentaries,  and  decrees  of  councils,  and  theo- 
logical treatises,  makes  a  very  respecflable  library, 
and  renders  unanimous  and  enthusiastic  rever- 
ence to  the  apostolic  origin  and  authorit}^  of  the 
New  Testament.  It  has  been  said  that  it  would 
be  easy,  from  this  literature,  to  reproduce  the  sub- 
stance of  the  New  Testament,  if  every  copy  should 
be  destro3^ed.  In  fa6l,  the  imperfedl  text  of  the 
Old  Latin  or  Itala  version,  which  circulated  in 
Northern  Africa  as  early  as  the  middle  of  the 
second  centurj^,  has  been  made  pradlically  com- 
plete by  the  help  of  quotations  found  in  the 
writings  of  Tertullian,  Cyprian,  Hilary,  Ambrose, 
Jerome,  Augustin,  and  others.  The  Greek  Test- 
ament lies  in  the  heart  of  the  early  Christian  litera- 
ture, as  lyUther's  Bible  lies  at  the  heart  of  German 
literature,  as  our  own  Bible  lies  at  the  heart  of 
English  literature.  From  these  literatures  both 
Bibles  could  be  restored,  without  great  difficulty, 
if  every  printed  copy  should  be  destroyed. 

The  brief  tra(5ls  of  the  Apostolic  Fathers,  writ- 
ten betwen  A.  D.  80  and  125,  assume  the  exist- 
ence of  the  New  Testament.     The  Didache,  or 


228  OLD   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles,  discovered  in 
the  library  of  the  Jerusalem  Monastery,  by  the 
Metropolitan  Bryennios,  in  1873,  and  edited  by 
him  in  1883,  assigned  by  Dr.  Schaff  to  A.  D.  90- 
100,  is  a  most  impressive  witness  to  the  ''  Gospel  " 
as  the  source  of  authoritative  teaching.  As  early 
as  the  middle  of  the  second  century  we  find  Tatian, 
a  famous  rhetorician  of  Syria,  editing  a  Harmony 
of  the  Four  Gospels,  as  the  only  authentic  and 
authoritative  sources  of  our  lyord's  life«  Passing 
from  Syria  to  France,  the  works  of  Irenasus,  of 
Lyons,  who  died  in  A.  D.  190  or  202,  and  the 
letter  of  Poly  carp,  the  martyr  of  Smyrna,  who 
died  in  155,  and  who  was  a  personal  pupil  of  the 
apostle  John,  as  we  learn  from  the  testimony  of 
Irenaeus,  who  had  seen  and  heard  Polycarp  in 
the  latter' s  old  age,  conducft  us  to  the  very  margin 
of  the  apostolic  period.  Clement  and  Origen  were 
famous  teachers  of  theology,  in  Alexandria,  be- 
tween A.  D.  190  and  254,  and  had  been  preceded 
by  Pantaenus.  Origen  was  one  of  the  most 
learned  of  men,  and  a  most  prolific  author, 
Jerome  sa3dng  of  him  that  he  had  written  more 
than  * '  other  men  read  ;  ' '   and  among  his  works 


I 


INTEGRITY   OF  THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.     229 

are  commentaries  on  nearly  every  book  of  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament.  Alexandria  had 
a  school  of  Christian  Theology  as  early  as  A.  D. 
180.  Another  theological  school  was  founded  at 
Antioch  about  A.  D.  300,  and  became  very  cele- 
brated. A  third  school  was  founded  at  Edessa, 
about  A.  D.  360,  which  trained  the  preachers  for 
Mesopotamia  and  Persia,  for  a  hundred  years. 
There  is  much  more  of  similar  evidence,  but 
enough  has  been  adduced  to  show  how  abund- 
ant, solid,  and  convincing,  is  the  evidence  upon 
which  we  receive  the  gospels  as  recording  the  his- 
tory of  Christ,  and  the  epistles  as  authoritative 
apostolic  expositions  of  His  ministry  and  mission. 
And  to  this  corroborative  evidence,  from  the 
literature  of  the  first  four  centuries,  might 
be  added  the  liturgical  evidence,  embodied  in 
Christian  hymns  and  confessions,  in  the  rude  in- 
scriptions upon  the  tombs  of  those  who  died  in 
the  faith,  in  the  unbroken  observation  of  the 
Christian  Sabbath  as  a  day  of  worship,  of  the 
Sacraments  as  instituted  and  enjoined  by  Christ, 
and  of  Easter  as  the  annual  commemoration  of 
our  I^ord's  resurrection  from  the  dead. 


230  OLD   TKSTAMKNT  UNDKR   FIRK. 

THE    EVIDENCE    FROM    IMPRESSION. 

It  is  permissible  for  a  man  to  testify  on  his  own 
behalf,  and  to  challenge  the  keenest  cross-exam- 
ination. It  is  perilous  to  invite  the  test  ;  but  for 
a  thoroughly  upright  man  it  affords  the  oppor- 
tunity of  the  most  signal  vindication.  A  truthful 
witness  carries  convicflion  and  confidence  in  his 
tone  and  bearing.  Bluster  and  boisterousness 
cannot  make  good  the  want  of  sincerity  and  of 
simple  truthfulness.  The  New  Testament  is 
invested  and  pervaded  with  a  simplicity,  a  direcfl- 
ness,  a  transparency,  a  moral  purity,  and  a 
spiritual  loftiness,  which  convincingly  attest  its 
truthfulness.  In  these  respeAs  it  stands  con- 
spicuously superior  to  the  literature  immediately 
following  it.  The  apocryphal  gospels  condemn 
themselves  by  their  puerility.  Even  the  best  of 
the  Apostolic  Fathers  only  repeat  the  common- 
places of  Christian  teaching  ;  the  New  Testament 
is  as  manly  and  dire(5l,  as  it  is  original  and  pro- 
found. 

THE    EVIDENCE    FROM    EXPERIENCE. 

This  pradlical  argument  is  only  carried  one 
step  farther,  and  to  its  legitimate  goal,  when  it  is 


INTEGRITY   OF  THK   NKW   TESTAMENT.     23 1 

made  personal.  The  Christ,  of  whom  the  New 
Testament  speaks,  and  who  declared  that  Moses, 
the  Prophets,  and  the  Psalms,  heralded  His 
advent,  death,  and  resurredlion,  is  the  Risen 
and  Exalted  Christ.  We  know  Him  through 
the  historical  record,  but  that  record  is  the  open 
door  through  which  we  pass  into  His  living, 
personal  presence.  The  historical  knowledge, 
which  we  have  of  Him,  carries  us  into  invisible, 
but  real  and  personal,  fellowship  with  Him,  as 
the  river's  current  carries  us  into  the  sea.  The 
record  declares  Him  to  be  a  Prince  and  a  Savior, 
exalted  to  give  repentance  and  remission  of  sins 
unto  all  who  call  upon  Him.  He  is  with  us,  and 
our  Advocate  in  heaven.  This  leaves  the  way- 
open  to  a  personal  verification  of  the  record. 
Without  any  familiarity  with  the  critical  evidence, 
as  outlined  above,  the  reader  may  convince  him- 
self whether  these  things  are  so,  or  not.  And 
Christian  experience,  with  jubilant  unanimity, 
adds  its  testimony  to  the  sovereign  and  saving 
power  of  Jesus  Christ.  Nor,  because  the  record 
passes  into  experience,  while  the  experience  con- 
firms  the   record,   is   this   arguing   in   a   circle. 


232  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

For,  both  the  record,  and  the  experience,  have 
their  source  in  Jesus  Christ.  His  life  on  earth, 
the  record  sketches  in  outline,  with  outlook  into 
the  heavenly  ministry;  the  ministry  in  heaven, 
and  by  the  Spirit,  He  attests  as  real,  in  personal 
Christian  experience,  and  thereby  the  certainty 
of  the  earthly  record  is  confirmed.  Upon  Him, 
as  Rock  and  Cornerstone,  the  Church  is  built; 
and  the  gates  of  Hades  shall  not  prevail  against 
her.  Nero  applied  the  torch,  and  Celsus  sharp- 
ened his  pen  ;  but  the  Carpenter  of  Nazareth 
brought  the  Roman  eagles  to  his  feet.  There 
can  come  no  fiercer  baptism  of  fire  than  that 
through  which  the  ante-Nicene  Church  passed. 
And  the  issue  of  that  early  baptism  is  prophetic 
of  all  the  future.  The  New  Testament  stands 
unimpeached  and  unimpeachable.  It  makes  im- 
mutable the  historic  place  and  mission  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  world.  He  is  its  invisible,  but 
mighty  and  immortal  King.  To  Him  shall  every 
knee  bow.  And  as  men  bow  to  Him  in  increas- 
ing numbers,  and  with  spontaneous  joy,  they  will 
accept  His  estimate,  and  imitate  His  use,  of  the 
Ancient  Scriptures,  which  for  twenty  years  have 


INTEGRITY   OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.     233 

been  the  target  of  an  unparalleled  bitter  criti- 
cism. The  smoke  of  battle  will  clear  away,  and 
the  Old  Book  will  emerge  without  a  scar! 

CONCLUDING    WOPD. 

And  now,  I  propose  to  take  my  readers  into  my 
confidence.  Some,  perhaps,  will  feel  that  the 
discussion  has  been  fragmentary,  and  somewhat 
discursive.  No  one  is  more  fully  aware  of  that, 
than  am  I.  It  would  have  been  easy  to  multiply 
these  pages  five  and  ten-fold.  But  the  literature 
upon  this  subjedl  is  so  great,  that  I  may  be  ex- 
cused for  having  touched  only  upon  a  few  salient 
points,  limiting  myself  to  such  as  are  most  out- 
standing. Others  may  wonder  that  my  pen 
has  been  so  pointed  and  pungent.  They  may  be 
surprised  at  my  passionate  intensity.  And  my 
heart  is  hot  within  me  ;  but  my  head  is  cool,  my 
eye  is  clear,  and  my  hand  is  steady.  To  me,  at 
least,  an  assault  upon  the  integrity,  and  the" his- 
torical credibility,  of  the  Scriptures,  is  tenfold 
more  serious  than  a  denial  of  Divine  inspiration. 
Give  me  a  true  book,  and  I  am  content.  Give 
me  a  book  which,  in  part  or  entire,  is  on  a  level 


234  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

with  ^sop's  fables,  and  while  it  may  amuse  me 
for  an  hour,  I  cannot  take  it  seriously  as  a  guide 
to  heaven. 

The  passionate  intensity  wath  which  T  have 
written  is  due,  not  only  to  the  supreme  import- 
ance of  the  matter  in  debate,  but  also  to  the  fierce 
personal  mental  struggle,  through  which  I  have 
passed  during  the  last  dozen  years.  I  have  been 
in  the  crushing  coils  of  this  critical  anaconda,  and 
know  what  the  fight  for  life  means.  Less  than 
twenty  years  ago,  the  revolutionary  criticism 
made  its  appearance  in  our  higher  institutions  of 
learning.  It  was  unknown  in  my  seminary  days. 
It  is  all  the  rage  now.  Theology  has  been 
thrust  into  the  back-ground,  and  the  critic  is  in 
the  saddle.  He  will  not  stay  there  long,  for 
already  the  steed  is  becoming  unmanageable. 
And  when  the  new  criticism  first  appeared,  I 
ignored  it.  I  did  not  believe  the  enemy 
ever  would  come  within  rifle  range,  and  so 
I  was  not  disturbed.  But  that  which  at  first 
was  only  a  rustle  in  the  top  leaves  of  the  trees, 
swept  downward  and  forw*ard,  and  with  increas- 
ing velocity.      I  kept  my  feet,  and  waited.      At 


INTEGRITY   OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.     235 

last,  eight  years  ago,  I  could  stand  it  no  longer 
and  I  determined  that  the  issue  must  be  fairly 
and  squarely  met.  I  girded  myself  for  the  task. 
I  took  down  my  negledled  Hebrew  Bible,  and 
plodded  through  its  every  line  ;  once,  and  again, 
and  yet  again, — the  Pentateuch  a  good  many 
times.  Meanwhile,  the  agony  grew  apace. 
Many  a  day  was  spent  in  restless  pacing  in  my 
study  ;  many  a  night  was  without  any  sleep,  ex- 
cept the  sleep  of  exhaustion.  It  seemed  to  me 
as  if  the  Old  Testament  were  slipping  away  from 
me.  I  dreaded  to  open  it,  and  I  dared  not  shut  it. 
The  darkness  seemed  growing  denser.  On  I 
pressed,  and  stumbled,  sometimes  nearly  losing  my 
footing.  The  eddy  became  a  maelstrom,  whose 
hissing  and  whirling  waters  threatened  to  suck  me 
into  their  cavernous  depths.  None  knew  my  agony, 
for  I  bore  it  in  silence.  And  Sunday  after  Sun- 
day I  went  into  my  pulpit,  to  preach  the  gospel, 
while  my  heart  was  ready  to  break.  I  had  lost 
my  childhood  faith,  and  there  was  none  to  take 
its  place.  The  language  of  the  first  half  of 
the  twenty-second  psalm  is  none  too  strong  to 
describe  the  agony  of  those  years. 


236  OI.D  TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

But  there  came  a  time  when  I  cried  with  the 
psalmist :   *  *  Gnanithani  ;  Thou  hast  heard  me  /'  * 
God  drew  me  out  of  the  engulfing  waters,  out  of 
the  pit  and  the  miry  clay,  set  my  feet  upon  the 
rock,  established  my  goings,  and  put  a  new  song 
into  my  mouth.     Be  it  eddy  or  whirlpool,  I  am 
out  of  both  ;  and  my  feet  are  planted  where  the 
waters  hiss  and  swirl,  without  so  much  as  dash- 
ing their  spray  upon   my  footing.     I  have  un- 
learned much.      There   are  many  things  about 
which  I  have  come  to  be  indifferent,  which  I  once 
regarded  as  essential.     I  have  no  w^ords  to  waste 
upon  questions    of    infallibility   and    inerrancy. 
Chronologies  and  genealogical  tables  have  ceased 
to  trouble  me.  Alleged  discrepancies  are  no  more 
to  me  than  a  few  drops  of  rain  on  a  radiant  June 
day.     The  sun  shines,  and  is  regnant,  for  all  that. 
The   dispute,   w^hether   inspiration   is   verbal   or 
noetic,  mechanical  or  dynamic,  partial  or  plenary, 
has  lost  its  interest  for  me.     Two  things  I  know  : 
that  the  Bible  is  God's  Book;  and  that  it  is  true.  I 
smile  when   I   hear   men    disputing   about    the 
phrases  :   ' '  The  Bible  is  the   Word  of  God, ' '  and 
*  *  The  Word  of  God  is  in  the  Bible. ' '     I  believe 


INTEGRITY   OF   THE   NEW   TESTAMENT.     237 

both,  as  I  believe  body  and  soul  constitute  a  man. 
The  message  of  God  is  the  eternal  soul ;  the  his- 
tory is  the  bod}^  in  which  that  soul  lives,  and 
moves,  and  through  which  that  soul  a6ls.  The 
message  is  infallible  and  eternal ;  the  history  is 
true.  That  is  my  confession.  And  I  say  frankly, 
that  the  message  to  me  would  not  be  infallible, 
did  I  believe  the  history  false  and  fabricated. 
Nor,  in  the  logical  argument,  do  I  prove  the  his- 
tory true,  because  the  message  is  divine  ;  but  the 
message  retains  for  me  its  eternal  and  inspiring 
authority,  because  I  am  sure  the  history  is  true. 
The  shafts  of  the  destrudlive  criticism  fall  wide 
of  the  mark.  The  logic  assumes  what  it  tries  to 
prove.  Its  advocates  pride  themselves  upon  being 
radical,  and  class  themselves  as  scientific  critics, 
speaking  of  their  opponents  as  conservatives,  and 
labelling  them  as  traditional.  The  radical  is  one 
who  goes  to  the  roots  of  things,  and  this  is  what 
the  conservatives  do.  I  deny  the  right  of  de- 
strudlive  criticism  to  the  boast  of  being  scientific. 
Science  has  respedl  for  fadls,  for  all  the  fa(5ls,  and 
for  the  fa(5ls  as  found.  Nothing  can  be  more  un- 
scientific than  the  procedure  of  the  Wellhausen 


238  OI.D   TESTAMENT   UNDER   FIRE. 

school.  It  throws  the  material  into  hopeless 
confusion.  It  mutilates  the  fa(5ls.  It  deals  in 
wholesale  charges  of  bad  faith,  and  of  fraud.  Its 
true  designation  is  destrucflive  criticism,  and  the 
new  reading  which  it  gives  of  the  Biblical  history 
is  unworthy  any  serious  man's  consideration.  It 
is  a  tragedy  for  the  earnest  man.  It  is  a  roaring 
farce  for  the  skeptic.  It  gives  pain  to  the  be- 
liever. It  invites  the  scorn  of  the  unbeliever.  It 
helps  nobody.  It  tears  the  Bible  into  shreds,  and 
dumps  the  book  bodily  into  the  literary  ash- 
barrel.  And  that  method  is  inviting  sharp  and 
sure  defeat.  To  my  eyes,  at  least,  the  swords 
have  broken  at  the  hilt,  and  the  lances  have 
snapped  in  the  hands  of  those  who  have  hurled 
them.  The  Scriptures  are  coming  out  of  the 
smoke  and  fury  of  the  battle,  without  a  scar,  and 
without  the  smell  of  fire  upon  their  garments. 

It  is  only  my  personal  testimony  ;  and  it  must 
pass  for  what  it  is  worth.  But  I  am  jubilant  in 
spirit.  I  am  not  disturbed  by  what  fifty  or  sixty 
men,  who  assume  to  have  the  monopoly  of  schol- 
arship, say.  I  have  listened  to  them  and  they 
have  not  convinced  me.   I  have  sifted  their  learn- 


INTEGRITY   OF  THE   NEW  TESTAMENT.     239 

ing  and  their  logic,  and  found  both  wanting. 
They  will  laugh  at  my  audacity,  and  treat  me 
with  the  silence  of  contempt.  But  I  do  not  as- 
sume the  role  of  a  specialist.  They  do  not  care 
for  me  ;  and  I  have  ceased  to  care  for  them. 
I  have  been  taking  lessons  from  a  better  teacher. 
I  have  simply  voiced  my  personal  testimony,  the 
outcome  of  a  bloody  sweat.  My  experience  is 
something  which  cannot  be  taken  away  from  me  ; 
and  it  has  come  to  me,  not  in  cloistered  cham- 
bers, but  in  the  arena  where  truth  is  a  matter 
of  life  and  death.  I  have  fought  my  battle,  and 
under  God,  I  have  gained  my  triumph.  And, 
in  these  pages,  I  have  spoken,  not  to  the  few, 
but  to  the  many  ;  to  the  thousands,  who  are 
dazed  and  bewildered,  and  to  whom,  perhaps, 
these  words  may  prove  to  be  a  word  of  cheer 
and  of  courage. 

For  Bunyan  tells  us  that  when  Christian  came 
to  the  River,  he  began  to  sink,  crying  out:  **I 
sink  in  deep  waters  ;  the  billows  go  over  my 
head  ;  all  his  waves  go  over  me."  Whereupon, 
his  good  friend  Hopeful  answered  :  *  *  Be  of  good 
cheer,  my  brother  ;    I  feel  the  bottom,  and  it  is 


240  OI.D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

good."  Then  fell  there  upon  Christian  a  great 
horror  and  darkness,  so  that  he  could  not  see 
before  him.  But,  presently, '  *  Christian  found  good 
groujid  to  stand  upon^  ajid  so  it  folloived  that  the 
rest  of  the  river  was  but  shallow ;  thus  they  got 
over. '  * 

"  The  firm  foundation  of  God  standeth  !  " 
— II.  Tim.  ii:  19. 


NOTE. 


After  the  preceding  pages  had  gone  to  press, 
the  first  volume  of  Professor  Adolf  Harnack's 
' '  The  Chronology  of  the  Old  Christian  Litera- 
ture," came  into  my  hands.  It  is  fresh  from  the 
Leipzig  press.  It  is  a  book  of  nearly  750  pages  ; 
and  is,  of  course,  exa(ft  and  massive  in  its  learn- 
ing. It  is  not  the  work  of  a  novice.  Harnack 
is  forty-six  years  old,  has  made  early  Christian 
history  a  specialty  for  twenty-five  years,  has  held 
chairs  in  the  universities  of  Leipzig,  Giessen,  and 
Marburg,  and  is  at  present  the  great  shining 
light  in  Berlin.  He  is  the  leader  of  the  school  of 
■Ritschl,  at  present  dominant  on  the  Continent, 
which  insists  upon  eliminating  all  speculative 
elements  from  theologj'.  Harnack's  influence  in 
the  leading  universities  of  England  and  America 
is  great.  His  latest  and  ripest  contribution  is 
all  the  more  remarkable,  because  even  in  Ger- 
many his  orthodoxy  has  been  fiercely  assailed. 
He  does  not  pose  as  the  advocate  of  any  school, 


242  OLD   TESTAMENT   UNDER    FIRE. 

for  the  Ritschlian  method  not  only  discards  met- 
aphysics in  theology,  but  also  denies  the  right  of 
philosophy  to  meddle  with  the  materials  of  his- 
tory. Harnack  insists  that  history  must  be  per- 
mitted to  tell  its  own  story,  and  that  its  story 
must  stand. 

In  his  preface  to  the  book  above  named,  Har- 
nack outlines  the  present  state  of  New  Testament 
criticism,  and  sums  up  briefly  the  results  to 
which  his  studies  have  led  him.  I  am  sure  that 
my  readers  will  welcome  the  following  translated 
extra(5ls,  which  are  from  the  original  : 

''There  was  a  time, — the  general  public  has 
not  even  yet  passed  out  of  it — when  the  oldest 
Christian  literature,  including  that  of  the  New 
Testament,  was  regarded  as  a  tissue  of  deceptions 
and  frauds.  That  time  is  past.  For  science, 
that  time  was  an  episode  ;  during  which  much 
was  learned,  and  after  which  much  will  have  to 
be  forgotten.  But  the  results  to  which  the  fol- 
lowing investigations  lead,  go  beyond  the  moder- 
ate school  in  their  readlionary  diredlion.  The 
oldest  literature  of  the  church,  considered  as 
historical  writing,  is  in  the  main  points,  and    in 


( 


NCTE.  24:5 

the  majority  of  its  details,  true  and  trust- 
worthy. 

"  Baur  and  his  school  once  contended,  that  an 
intelligent  and  reliable  sketch  of  the  development 
of  primitive  Christianity  could  be  drawn,  only  by 
surrendering,  for  the  major  part  of  the  ancient 
Christian  literature,  the  evidence  of  the  writings 
themselves,  and  the  testimony  of  tradition  ;  and 
by  dragging  down  the  date  of  these  writings 
several  centuries.  The  presuppositions  of  the 
school  of  Baur,  it  may  now  be  said,  have  been 
universally  given  up  ;  but  there  remains,  in  the 
criticism  of  the  old  Christian  writings,  an  indefi- 
nite distrust,  a  treatment  such  as  proceeds  from 
an  irritated  lawyer,  or  which,  at  all  events,  may 
be  described  as  that  of  a  third-rate  and  petty 
school-master. 

' '  The  last  twenty  years  have  been  marked  by 
retrograde  judgment.  I  am  not  afraid,  or  ashamed, 
of  the  word  '  retrograde ;  '  for  things  should  be 
called  by  their  right  names,  and  in  the  criticism 
of  the  sources  of  primitive  Christianity,  we  are 
unquestionably  moving  backwards  towards  tradi- 
tion ;   for  the   chronological   boundaries,    within 


244  <^I-D   TESTAMENT  UNDER   FIRE. 

which  tradition  has  fixed  the  documents,  is  in  all 
main  points,  from  the  epistles  of  Paul  to  Irenaeus, 
corre(?t,  and  compels  the  historian  to  abandon  all 
theories  of  historical  development,  which  deny 
these  boundaries.  Only  a  few  weeks  ago,  a 
Dutch  theologian,  who  recognizes  the  boundaries 
within  which  tradition  has  fixed  the  primitive 
Christian  documents,  said  to  me  that  he  had 
despaired  of  sketching  a  natural  history  of  primi- 
tive Christianity,  and  was  compelled  to  believe 
in  a  supernatural  history. 

"The  time  will  come,  and  it  is  already  upon 
us,  when  the  historico-literary  problems  of  primi- 
tive Christianity  will  cease  to  command  attention, 
because  it  will  be  universally  acknowledged  that 
tradition  speaks  with  authority.  If  the  following 
pages  shall  contribute  their  part  to  recall  con- 
fidence in  the  chronological  boundaries,  within 
which  the  primitive  Christian  literature  is  deliv- 
ered to  us,  and  to  intensify  the  same,  and  so  to 
transfer  attention  from  literary  problems  to  histor- 
ical problems,  their  highest  aim  will  have  been  se- 
cured. In  the  realm  of  history,  not  in  the  realm  of 
literary  criticism ,  lie  the  problems  of  the  future. ' ' 


NOTE.  245 

The  Germans  speak  of  great  books  as  ' '  epoch- 
making."  This  book  marks  an  epoch.  It  is  a 
distincft,  unqualified  repudiation  of  the  Higher 
Criticism  in  its  assaults  upon  the  integrity  and 
the  credibility  of  the  New  Testament.  It  is  a 
straight-forward  declaration,  from  the  foremost 
scholar  of  Europe,  that  historical  research  sup- 
ports the  testimony  of  tradition.  It  announces, 
in  decisive  terms,  that  the  battle  of  more  than 
sixty  years  has  ended  in  the  hopeless  rout  of  the 
critics.  The  New  Testament  has  stood  the  test. 
Many  of  us  knew  it  long  ago  ;  but  Harnack  has 
driven  the  last  nail  into  the  coffin.  Baur  is  dis- 
credited by  the  most  commanding  voice  of  our 
time.  Scholarship  comes  back  to  the  faith  of  the 
nursery.  The  great  have  surrendered  to  the 
lowly.  The  foolishness  of  God  has  triumphed. 
The  cottages  have  conquered  the  universities.  It 
may  well  inspire  us  all  with  new  courage  and 
hope.  The  firm  foundation  of  God  standeth  ! 
For  the  critical  postulates  of  the  school  of  Well- 
hausen  are  identical  with  those  of  the  school  of 
Baur.  They  have  been  discredited  in  the  region 
of  the  New  Testament  literature,  which  emerges 


246  OLD   TESTAMKNT  UNDER    FIRE. 

unharmed  from  the  keen  dissedlion.  Not  a  nerve 
has  been  severed,  not  a  drop  of  blood  has  been 
drawn.  The  edge  of  the  knife  has  left  no  mark. 
And  the  surgery  will  prove  as  harmless  upon  the 
Old  Testament.  That  is  not,  any  more  than  the 
New  Testament,  ' '  a  tissue  of  deceptions  and 
frauds. ' '  The  '  *  supernatural  history  * '  recorded 
in  it,  will  have  to  be  believed.  The  time  is  com- 
ing, and  it  may  be  nearer  than  we  think,  when  the 
literar}^  problems  of  the  Old  Testament  ' '  will 
cease  to  command  attention,  because  it  will  be 
universally  acknowledged  that  tradition  speaks 
with  authority." 

I  said  that,  if  I  lived  twenty  years  longer,  I 
expedled  to  see  the  school  of  Wellhausen  laid  out 
for  solitary  burial,  with  none  to  mourn  its  depar- 
ture. From  across  the  sea,  and  from  the  Royal 
University  of  Berlin,  a  new  tone  smites  my  ear, 
and  it  sounds  like  the  tolling  of  the  bell  !  Can  it 
be  that  the  end  has  come  ?  It  seems  so  ;  and  it 
certainly  cannot  be  very  far  off !  And  when  the 
tolling  dies  away,  the  Church  of  God  will  prize 
her  Bible  more  than  ever  ! 


DATE  DUE 


' 

GAYLORD 

PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 

..-,.,^<^™ 


